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OLIVER GOLLSJVJ'JTi 

A BIOGRAPHY 
BY WASHINGTON IRVING. 










PHIA 
J. B. L _ : OTT A C: 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



A BIOGRAPHY. 



BY 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO, 

1873. 



■17 . 
'873 



Entered according ti» Act cf Congress, In the year 1864, by 

George P. Putnam, , 

id the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District oi 
New York. 



A3 Club 

M 1929 



PREFACE. 




IN the course of a revised edition of my 
works I have come to a biographical sketch 
of Goldsmith, published several years since. 
It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection 
from his writings ; and, though the facts contained in 
it were collected from various sources, I was chiefly 
indebted for them to the voluminous work of Mr. 
James Prior, who had collected and collated the most 
minute particulars of the poet's history with unwearied 
research and scrupulous fidelity ; but had rendered 
them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and over- 
laid with details and disquisitions, and matters unin» 
teresting to the general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographical 
sketch, preparatory to republication, a volume was 
put into my hands, recently given to the public by 
Mr. John Forster, of the Inner Temple, who, likewise 
availing himself of the labors of the indefatigable 
Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has 
produced a biography of the poet, executed with a 
spirit, a feeling, a grace, and an eloquence, that leave 
nothing to be desired. Indeed it would have been 
presumption in me to undertake the subject after it 
iiad been thus felicitously treated, did I not stand 
committed by my previous sketch. That sketch now 
appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public 
demand ; yet it had to take its place in the revised 
series of my works unless something more satisfactory 



4 PREFACE. 

could be substituted. Under these circumstances 1 
have again taken up the subject, and gone into it 
with more fulness than formerly, omitting none of tho 
facts which I considered illustrative of the life and 
character of the poet, and giving them in as graphic 
a style as I could command. Still the hurried man- 
ner in which I have had to do this amidst the press- 
ure of other claims on my attention, and with the 
press dogging at my heels, has prevented me from 
giving some parts of the subject the thorough hand- 
ling I could have wished. Those who would like to 
see it treated still more at large, with the addition 
of critical disquisitions and the advantage of col- 
lateral facts, would do well to refer themselves to 
Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to the elegant 
and discursive pages of Mr. Forster. 

For my own part, I can only regret my short- 
comings in what to me is a labor of love ; for it is a 
tribute of gratitude to the memory of an author 
whose writings were the delight of my childhood, and 
have been a source of enjoyment to me throughout 
life ; and to whom, of all others, I may address tho 
beautiful apostrophe of Dante to Yirgil, — 

Tu se' lo mio maestro, e '1 mio autore : 
Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi 
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore. 

W.I. 

Sunnyside, Aug. 1 , 1849. 




CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAOB 

Birth and Parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmith 
Race. — Poetical Birthplace. — Goblin House. — Scenes 
of Boyhood. - — Lissoy. — Picture of a Country Parson. 
Goldsmith's Schoolmistress. — Byrne, the Village 
Schoolmaster. — Goldsmith's Hornpipe and .Epigram. 
Uncle Contarine. — School Studies and School Sports. 
Mistakes of a Night 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family. — Gold- 
smith at the University. — Situation of a Sizer. — 
Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor. — Pecuniary Straits. 
Street-Ballads. — College Riot. — Gallows Walsh. — 
College Prize. — A Dance interrupted . . . .27 

CHAPTER III. 

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop. — Second Sally to 
see the World. — Takes Passage for America. — Ship 
sails without him. — Return on Fiddle-back. — A hos- 
pitable Friend. — The Counsellor .... 44 

CHAPTER IV. 

Sallies forth as a Law-Student. — Stumbles at the Out- 
set. — Cousin Jane and the Valentine. — A Family 
Oracle. — Sallies forth as a Student of Medicine. — 
Hocus-Pocus of a Boarding-House. — Transformations 
of a Leg of Mutton. — The Mock Ghost. — Sketches 
of Scotland. — Trials of Toadyism. — A Poet's Purse 
for a Continental Tour 53 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGH 

The Agreeable Fellow-Passengers. — Risks from Friends 
picked up by tbe Wayside. — Sketches of Hull and the 
Dutch. — Shifts while a poor Student at Leyden. — 
The Tulip-Speculation. — The Provident Flute. — So- 
journ at Paris. — Sketch of Voltaire. — Travelling 
Shifts of a Philosophic Vagabond 68 

CHAPTER VI. 

Landing in England. — Shifts of a Man without Money. 
The Pestle and Mortar. — Theatricals in a Barn. — 
Launch upon London. — A City Night-Scene. — Strug- 
gles with Penury. — Miseries of a Tutor. — A Doctor 
in the Suburb. — Poor Practice and Second-hand 
Finery. — A Tragedy in Embryo. — Project of the 
Written Mountains 8( 

CHAPTER VII. 

Life of a Pedagogue. — Kindness to Schoolboys. — Pert- 
ness in Return. — Expensive Charities. — The Griffiths 
and the "Monthly Review." — Toils of a Literary 
Hack. — Rupture with the Griffiths .... 88 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Newbery, of Picture-Book Memory. — How to keep up 
Appearances. — Miseries of Authorship. — A poor Re- 
lation. — Letter to Hodson 94 

CHAPTER IX. 

Hackney Authorship. — Thoughts of Literary Suicide. 
Return to Peckham. — Oriental Projects. — Literary 
Enterprise to raise Funds. — Letter to Edward Wells ; 
To Robert Bryanton. — Death of Uncle Contarine. — 
Letter to Cousin Jane 10* 

CHAPTER X. 

Oriental Appointment ; and Disappointment. — Exam- 
ination at the College of Surgeons. — How to procure 
a Suit of Clothes. — Fresh Disappointment. — A Tale 



CONTENTS. 7 

TAGB 

of Distress. — The Suit of Clothes in Pawn. — Punish- 
ment for doing an Act of Charity. — Gayeties of 
Green- Arbor Court. — Letter to his Brother. — Life of 
Voltaire. — Scroggins, an Attempt at mock-heroic 
Poetry 114 

CHAPTER XL 

Publication of " The Inquiry." — Attacked by Griffiths' 
Review. — Kenrick the Literary Ishmaelite. — Period- 
ical Literature. — Goldsmith's Essays. — Garrick as a 
Manager. — Smollett and his Schemes. — Change of 
Lodgings. — The Robin Hood Club .... 133 

CHAPTER XII. 

New Lodgings. — Yisits of Ceremony. — Hangers-on. — 
Pilkington and the White Mouse. — Introduction to 
Dr. Johnson. — Davies and his Bookshop. — Pretty 
Mrs. Davies. — Eoote and his Projects. — Criticism of 
the Cudgel 141 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Oriental Projects. — Literary Jobs. — The Cherokee 
Chiefs. — Merry Islington and the White Conduit 
House. — Letters on the History of England. — James 
Boswell. — Dinner of Davies. — Anecdotes of Johnson 
and Goldsmith 149 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Hogarth a Visitor at Islington ; His Character. — Street 
Studies. — Sympathies between Authors and Painters. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds ; His Character ; His Dinners. — 
The Literary Club ; Its Members. — Johnson's Revels 
with Lanky and Beau. — Goldsmith at the Club . . 159 

CHAPTER XV. 

Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith ; Finds him in Distress 
with his Landlady; Relieved by the " Vicar of Wake- 
field." — The Oratorio. —Poem of the " Traveller." — 
The Poet and his Dog. — Success of the Poem. — Aston- 
ishment of the Club — Observations on the Poem .171 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGi 

New Lodgings. — Johnson's Compliment. — A Titled 
Patron. — The Poet at Northumberland House. — His 
Independence of the Great. — The Countess of North- 
umberland. — " Edwin and Angelina." — Gosfield and 
Lord Clare. — Publication of Essays. — Evils of a Ris- 
ing Reputation. — Hangers - on. — Job - Writing. — 
" Goody Two-shoes." — A Medical Campaign. — Mrs. 
Sidebotham 178 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Publication of the " Vicar of "Wakefield '" ; Opinions con- 
cerning it: Of Dr. Johnson; Of Rogers the Poet; Of 
Goethe ; Its Merits ; Exquisite Extract. — Attack by 
Kenrick. — Reply. — Book-Building. — Project of a 
Comedy-. 189 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Social Position of Goldsmith; His Colloquial Contests 
with Johnson. — Anecdotes and Illustrations . . 199 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Social Resorts. — The Shilling Whist-Club. —A Prac- 
tical Joke.— The Wednesday Club.— The "Tun of 
Man." — The Pig-Butcher. — Tom King. — Hugh 
Kelly. — Glover and his Characteristics . . .20* 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Great Cham of Literature and the King. — Scene at 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's. — Goldsmith accused of Jeal- 
ousy. — Negotiations with Garrick. — The Author and 
the Actor; Their Correspondence . . . .213 

CHAPTER XXI. 

More Hack-Authorship. — Tom Davies and the Roman 
History. — Canonbury Castle. — Political Authorship. 
Pecuniary Temptation. — Death of Newbery the 
Elder .221 



CONTEXTS. V 

CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGi 

Theatrical Manoeuvring. — The Comedy of •' False Del- 
icacy." — First Performance of the "Good-natured 
Man." — Conduct of Johnson. — Conduct of the 
Author. — Intermeddling of the Press . . .226 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Burning the Candle at both Ends. — Fine Apartments. 
Fine Furniture. — Fine Clothes. —Fine Acquaintances. 
Shoemaker's Holiday and Jolly-Pigeon Associates. — 
Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hampstead Hoax. — 
Poor Friends among great Acquaintances . • . 233 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Reduced again to Book-Building. — Rural Retreat at 
Shoemaker's Paradise. — Death of Henry Goldsmith; 
Tributes to his Memory in the " Deserted Village " . 240 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Dinner at Bickerstaff 's. — Hiffernan and his Impecuni- 
osity. — Kenrick's Epigram. — Johnson's Consolation. 
Goldsmith's Toilet. — The Bloom-colored Coat. — 
New Acquaintances; The Homeck's. — A Touch of 
Poetry and Passion. — The Jessamy Bride . . .245 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Goldsmith in the Temple. — Judge Day and Grattan. — 
Labor and Dissipation. — Publication of the Roman 
History. — Opinions of it. — " History of Animated 
Nature." — Temple Rookery. — Anecdotes of a Spider 253 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to his Brother 

Maurice. — Family Fortunes. — Jane Contarine and 

the Miniature. — Portraits and Engravings. — School 

Associations. — Johnson and Goldsmith in Westminster 

Abbey 264 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Publication of the " Deserted Village " ; Notices and 
Illustrations of it 271 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

PAGl 

The Poet among the Ladies ; Description of his Person 
and Manners. — Expedition to Paris with the Horneck 
Family. — The Traveller of Twenty and the Traveller 
of Forty. — Hickey, the Special Attorney. — An un- 
lucky Exploit 279 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Death of Goldsmith's Mother. — Biography of Parnell. 
Agreement with Davies for the History of Rome. — Life 
of Bolinghroke. — The Haunch of Venison . . 291 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Dinner at the Royal Academy. — The Rowley Contro- 
versy. — Horace Walpole's Conduct to Chatterton. — 
Johnson at RedclifFe Church. — Goldsmith's History of 
England. — Davies's Criticism. — Letter to Bennet 
Langton 297 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Marriage of Little Comedy. — Goldsmith at Barton. — 
Practical Jokes at the Expense of his Toilet. — Amuse- 
ments at Barton. — Aquatic Misadventure . . . 304 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Dinner at General Oglethorpe's. — Anecdotes of the 
General. — Dispute about Duelling. — Ghost Stone's . 309 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Mr. Joseph Cradock. — An Author's Confidings. — An 
Amanuensis. — Life at Edgeware. — Goldsmith Con- 
juring. — George Colman. — The Fantoccini . .315 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Broken Health. — Dissipation and Debts. — The Irish 
Widow. — Practical Jokes. — Scrub. — A Misquoted 
Pun. — Malagrida. — Goldsmith proved to be a Fool. 
Distressed Ballad-Singers. — The Poet at Ranelagh . 326 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

PAQB 

[nvitation to Christmas. — The Spring-Velvet Coat.— 
The Haymaking Wig. — The Mischances of Loo. — 
The Fair Culprit. — A Dance with the Jessamy Bride . 338 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Theatrical Delays. — Negotiations with Colman. — Let- 
ter to Garrick. — Croaking of the Manager. — Naming 
of the Play. — "She Stoops to Conquer." — Foote's 
Primitive Puppet-Show, "Piety on Pattens." — First 
Performance of the Comedy. — Agitation of the Au- 
thor. — Success. — Colman Squibbed out of Town . 344 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
A Newspaper Attack. — The Evans Affray. — Johnson's 
Comment 357 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Boswell in Holy-Week. — Dinner at Oglethorpe's. - 
Dinner at Paoli's. — The Policy of Truth. — Gold- 
smith affects Independence of Royalty. — Paoli's 
Compliment. — Johnson's Eulogium on the Fiddle. — 
Question about Suicide. — Boswell's Subserviency . 364 

CHAPTER XL. 

Changes in the Literary Club. — Johnson's Objection to 
Garrick. — Election of Boswell 375 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Dinner at Dilley's. — Conversations on Natural History. 
Intermeddling of Boswell. — Dispute about Toleration. 
Johnson's Rebuff to Goldsmith ; His Apology. — Man- 
Worship. — Doctors Major and Minor. — A Farewell 
Visit 380 

CHAPTER XLII. 

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. — Disap- 
pointment. — Negligent Authorship. — Application for 
a Pension. — Beattie's Essay on Truth. — Public 
Adulation. — A High-minded Rebuke . . . 387 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

PA0J6 

Toil without Hope. — The Poet in the Green-Rooin ; In 
the Flower-Garden; At Vauxhall; Dissipation with- 
out Gayety. — Cradock in Town; Friendly Sympa- 
thy j A Parting Scene; An Invitation to Pleasure . 394 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

A Return to Drudgery ; Forced Gayety ; Retreat to the 
Country; The Poem of " Retaliation.' — Portrait of 
Garrick ; Of Goldsmith ; Of Reynolds. — Illness of the 
Poet; His Death; Grief of his Friends. — A Last 
Word respecting the Jessamy Bride .... 402 

CHAPTER XLV. 
The Funeral. — The Monument. —The Epitaph — Con- 
cluding Reflections . . . . • • 414 




OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER I. 




Birth and Parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race 
Poetical Birthplace. — Goblin House. — Scenes of Boy 
hood. — Lissoy. — Picture of a Country Parson. — Gold- 
smith's Schoolmistress. — Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster. 
Goldsmith's Hornpipe and Epigram. — Uncle Contarine. 
School Studies and School Sports. — Mistakes of a Night. 

^HEE-E are few writers for whom the 
reader feels such personal kindness as 
for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so 
eminently possessed the magic gift of identify- 
ing themselves with their writings. We read his 
character in every page, and grow into familiar 
intimacy with him as we read. The artless 
benevolence that beams throughout his works; 
the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life 
and human nature ; the unforced humor, blending 
so happily with good feeling and good sense, and 
singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melan- 
choly ; even the very nature of his mellow, and 
lowing, and softly-tinted style, — all seem to be- 
speak his moral as well as his intellectual quali- 
ties, and make us love the man at the same time 



14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that we admire the author. While the produc- 
tions of writers of loftier pretension and more 
sounding names are suffered to moulder on our 
shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished and 
laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them 
with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, 
sweeten our tempers, and harmonize our thoughts ; 
they put us in good-humor with ourselves and 
with the world, and in so doing they make us 
hajppier and better men. 

An acquaintance with the private biography 
of Goldsmith lets us into the secret of his gifted 
pages. We there discover them to be little more 
than transcripts of his own heart and picturings 
of liis fortunes. There he shows himself the 
same kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sen- 
sible, whimsical, intelligent being that he appears 
in his writings. Scarcely an adventure or char- 
acter is given in his works that may not be traced 
to his own parti-colored story. Many of his most 
ludicrous scenes and ridiculous incidents have 
been drawn from his own blunders and mis- 
chances, and he seems really to have been buf- 
feted into almost every maxim imparted by him 
for the instruction of his reader. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of 
November, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, or 
Pallasmore, county of Longford, in Ireland. He 
prang from a respectable, but by no means a 
thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit 
kindliness and incompetency, and to hand down 
/irtue and poverty from generation to generation 
Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. " They 



POETICAL BIRTHPLACE. 15 

were always," according to their own accounts, 
" a strange family ; they rarely acted like other 
people ; their hearts were in the right place, but 
their heads seemed to be doing anything but 
what they ought." — " They were remarkable," 
says another statement, " for their worth, but of 
no cleverness in the ways of the world." Olrvcr 
Goldsmith will be found faithfully to inherit the 
virtues and weaknesses of his race. 

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with 
hereditary improvidence, married when very young 
and very poor, and starved along for several 
years on a small country curacy and the assist- 
ance of his wife's friends. His whole income, 
eked out by the produce of some fields which he 
farmed, and of some occasional duties performed 
for his wife's uncle, the rector of an adjoining 
parish, did not exceed forty pounds. 

"And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that 
stood on a rising ground in a rough, lonely part 
of the country, overlooking a low tract occasion- 
ally flooded by the river Inny. In this house 
Goldsmith was born, and it was a birthplace 
worthy of a poet ; for, by all accounts, it was 
haunted ground. A tradition handed down 
among the neighboring peasantry states that, in 
after-years, the house, remaining for some time 
untenanted, went to decay, the roof fell in, and 
it became so lonely and forlorn as to be a resort 
for the " good people " or fairies, who in Ireland 
are supposed to delight in old, crazy, deserted 
2 



I'fi OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

mansions for their midnight revels. All attempts? 
to repair it were in vain ; the fairies battled 
stoutly to maintain possession. A huge mis- 
shapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house 
every evening with an immense pair of jackboots, 
which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would 
thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all the 
work of the preceding clay. The house was 
therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin. 

Such is the popular tradition about Gold- 
smith's birthplace. About two years after his 
birth a change came over the circumstances of 
his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he 
succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West ; and, 
abandoning the old goblin mansion, he removed 
to Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath, where he 
occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated on the 
skirts of that pretty little village. 

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, 
the little world whence he drew many of those 
pictures, rural and domestic, whimsical and touch- 
ing, which abound throughout his works, and 
which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and 
the heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the 
original of his "Auburn " in the " Deserted Vil- 
lage " ; his father's establishment, a mixture of 
farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for 
the rural economy of the " Vicar of Wakefield " ; 
and his father himself, with his learned simplicity, 
his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and utter 
ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely por- 
trayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us 
pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's 



HIS FATHER. 17 

writings one or two of those pictures which, 
under feigned names, represent his father and his 
family, and the happy fireside of his childish 
days. 

" My father," says the " Man in Black," who, 
in some respects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith 
himself, — " my father, the younger son of a good 
family, was possessed of a small living in the 
church. His education was above his fortune, 
and his generosity greater than his education. 
Poor as he was, he had his flatterers poorer than 
himself: for every dinner he gave them, they 
returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this 
was all he wanted. The same ambition that 
actuates a monarch at the head of his army, 
influenced my father at the head of his table ; 
he told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was 
laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two 
scholars and one pair of breeches, and the com- 
pany laughed at that ; but the story of Taffy in 
the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a 
roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion 
to the pleasure he gave ; he loved all the world, 
and he fancied all the world loved him. 

" As his fortune was but small, he lived up to 
the very extent of it : he had no intention of 
Jeaving his children money, for that was dross ; 
he resolved they should have learning, for learn- 
ing, he used to observe, was better than silver or 
gold. For this purpose he undertook to instruct 
us himself, and took as much care to form' our 
morals as to improve our understanding. We 
were told that universal benevolence was what 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

first cemented society : we were taught to con- 
sider all the wants of mankind as our own ; to 
regard the human face divine with affection and 
esteem ; he wound us up to be mere machines of 
pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding 
the slightest impulse made either by real or fic- 
titious distress. In a word, we were perfectly 
instructed in the art of giving away thousands 
before we were taught the necessary qualifica- 
tions of getting a farthing." 

In the " Deserted Village " we have another 
picture of his father and his father's fireside : — 

" His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; 
The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Glaim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the nigfet away; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder 1 d his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleased .with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began." 

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of 
Give sons and three daughters. Henry, the eldest, 
was the good man's pride and hope, and he tasked 
his slender means to the utmost in educating him 
for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver 
was the second son, and seven years younger than 
Henry, who was the guide and protector of his 
childhood, and to whom he was most tenderly 
attached throughout life. 



SIS EARLY EDUCATION. 19 

Oliver's education began when he was about 
three years old; that is to say, he was gathered 
under the wings of one of those good old moth- 
erly dames, found in every village, who cluck to- 
gether the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, 
to teach them their letters and keep them out ot 
harm's way. Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that 
was her name, flourished in this capacity for up- 
ward of fifty years, and it was the pride and 
boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety 
years of age, that she was the first that had put 
a book (doubtless a hornbook) into Goldsmith's 
hands. Apparently he did not much profit by it, 
for she confessed he was one of the dullest boys 
she had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had 
sometimes doubted whether it was possible to 
make anything of him : a common case with im 
aginative children, who are apt to be beguiled 
from the dry abstractions of elementary study by 
the picturings of the fancy. 

At six years of age he passed into the hands 
of the village schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as 
he was commonly and irreverently named, Pad- 
dy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet. He had 
been educated for a pedagogue, but had enlisted 
in the army, served abroad during the wars of 
Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of 
quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the 
return of peace, having no longer exercise for 
the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the 
urchin populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is sup- 
posed to have had him and his school in view in 
the following sketch in his " Deserted Village ' , : — 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

u Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossom'cl furze unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skill' d to rule, 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew: 
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laugh' d with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
Fidl well the busy whisper circling round, 
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd: 
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 
The village all declared how much he knew, 
'T was certain he could write, and cipher too ; 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge: 
In arguing, too, the parson own' d his skill, 
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; 
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics, ranged around, — 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew." 

There are certain whimsical traits in the char- 
acter of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch, 
He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings 
in foreign lands, and had brought with him from 
the wars a world of campaigning stories, of which 
ne was generally the hero, and which he would 
deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ou2;ht 
to have been teaching them their lessons. These 
travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the 
vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened 
an unconquerable passion for wandering and 
seeking adventure. 

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and 



FIRST ATTEMPTS AT VERSE. 21 

exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed 
in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, 
all which he professed implicitly to believe. Un 
der his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as 
great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch 
of good-for-nothing knowledge, his studies, by an 
easy transition, extended to the histories of rob 
bers, pirates, smugglers, and the whole race of 
Irish rogues and rapparees. Everything, in short, 
that savored of romance, fable, and adventure, 
was congenial to his poetic mind, and took instant 
root there ; but the slow plants of useful knowl- 
edge were apt to be overrun, if not choked, by 
the weeds of his quick imagination. 

Another trait, of Ins motley preceptor, Byrne, 
was a disposition to dabble in poetry, and this 
likewise was caught by his pupil. Before he 
was eight years old, Goldsmith had contracted a 
habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of pa- 
per, which, in a little while, he would throw into 
the fire. A few of these sibylline leaves, however, 
were rescued from the flames and conveyed to 
his mother. The good woman read them with 
a mother's delight, and saw at once that her son 
was a genius and a poet. From that time she 
beset her husband with solicitations to give the 
boy an education suitable to his talents. The 
worthy man was already straitened by the costs of 
instruction of his eldest sen Henry, and had in- 
tended to bring his second son up to a trade ; but 
the mother would listen to no such thing; as 
usual, her influence prevailed, and Oliver, instead 
■*f being instructed in some humble, but cheerful 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and gainful handicraft, was devoted to poverty 
and the Muse. 

A severe attack of the small-pox caused him 
to be taken from under the care of his story-tell- 
ing preceptor, Byrne. His malady had nearly 
proved fatal, and his face remained pitted through 
life. On his recovery he was placed under the 
charge of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of 
Elphin, in Roscommon, and became an inmate in 
the house of his uncle, John Goldsmith, Esq., of 
Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He now entered 
upon studies of a higher order, but without mak 
ing any uncommon progress. Still a careless, 
easy facility of disposition, an amusing eccentric- 
ity of manners, and a vein of quiet and peculiar 
humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a 
trifling incident soon induced his uncle's family 
to concur in his mother's opinion of his genius. 

A number of young folks had assembled at his 
uncle's to dance. One of the company, named 
Cummings, played on the violin. In the course 
of the evening Oliver undertook a hornpipe. His 
short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted and 
discolored with the small-pox, rendered him a lu- 
dicrous figure in the eyes of the musician, who 
made merry at his expense, dubbing him his little 
JEsop. Goldsmith was nettled by the jest, and, 
stopping short in the hornpipe, exclaimed, — 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See iEsop dancing, and his monkey pkiying." 

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy 
of nine years old, and Oliver became forthwith the 
wit and the bright genius of the family. It was 



TRANSFERRED TO NEW SCHOOLS. 23 

thought a pity he should not receive the same ad 
vantages with his elder brother Henry, who ha<J 
been sent to the University ; and, as his father's 
circumstances would not afford it, several of his 
relatives, spurred on by the representations of his 
mother, agreed to contribute towards the expense. 
The greater part, however, was borne by his 
uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarine. This worth) 
man had been the college companion of Bishop 
Berkeley, and was possessed of moderate means, 
holding the living of Carrick-on-Shannon. He 
had married the sister of Goldsmith's father, but 
was now a widower, with an only child, a daugh- 
ter, named Jane. Contarine was a kind-hearted 
man, with a generosity beyond his means. He 
took Goldsmith into favor from his infancy ; his 
house was open to him during the holidays ; his 
daughter Jane, two years older than the poet, was 
his early playmate ; and uncle Contarine continued 
to the last one of his most active, unwavering, 
and generous friends. 

Fitted out in a great measure by this consider- 
ate relative, Oliver was now transferred to schools 
of a higher order, to prepare him for the Univer- 
sity ; first to one at Athlone, kept by the Rev. Mr. 
Campbell, and, at the end of two years, to one at 
Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence of 
the Rev. Patrick Hughes. 

Even at these schools his proficiency does not 
appear to have been brilliant. He was indolent 
and careless, however, rather than dull, and, on 
the whole, appears to have been well thought of 
by his teachers. In his studies he inclined to- 



24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

wards the Latin poets and historians ; relished 
Ovid and Horace, and delighted in Livy. He 
exercised himself with pleasure in reading and 
translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay atten- 
tion to style in his compositions by a reproof from 
his brother Henry, to whom he had written brief 
and confused letters, and who told him in reply, 
that, if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say 
that little well. 

The career of his brother Henry at the Uni- 
versity was enough to stimulate him to exertion. 
He seemed to be realizing all his father's hopes, 
and was winning collegiate honors that the good 
man considered indicative of his future success in 
life. 

In the meanwhile, Oliver, if not distinguished 
among his teachers, was popular among his school- 
mates. He had a thoughtless generosity extreme- 
ly captivating to young hearts : his temper was 
quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but his 
anger was momentary, and it was impossible for 
him to harbor resentment. He was the leader 
of all boyish sports and athletic amusements, es- 
pecially ball-playing, and he was foremost in all 
mischievous pranks. Many years afterward, an 
old man, Jack Fitzimmons, one of the directors 
of the sports, and keeper of the ball-court at Bally- 
mahon, used to boast of having been schoolmate 
of " Noll Goldsmith," as he called him, and would 
dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in 
robbing the orchard of Tirlicken, an old family 
residence of Lord Annaly. The exploit, however, 
had nearly involved disastrous consequences ; for 



MISTAKES OF A NIGHT. 25 

the crew of juvenile depredators were captured, 
like Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues ; 
and nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's 
connections saved him from the punishment that 
would have awaited more plebeian delinquents. 

An amusing incident is related as occurring in 
Goldsmith's last journey homeward from Edgo- 
worthstown. His father's house was about twen- 
ty miles distant ; the road lay through a rough 
country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith 
procured a horse for the journey, and a friend fur- 
nished him with a guinea for travelling expenses. 
He was but a stripling of sixteen, and being thus 
suddenly mounted on horseback, with money in 
his pocket, it is no wonder that his head was 
turned. He determined to play the man, and to 
spend his money in independent traveller's style. 
Accordingly, instead of pushing directly for home, 
he halted for the night at the little town of Ardagh, 
and, accosting the first person he met, inquired, 
with somewhat of a consequential air, for the best 
house in the place. Unluckily, the person he had 
accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, who 
was quartered in the family of one Mr. Feather- 
stone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the 
self-consequence of the stripling, and willing to 
play off a practical joke at his expense, he di- 
rected him to what was literally " the best house 
in the place," namely, the family mansion of Mr. 
Featherstone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up to 
what he supposed to be an inn, ordered his horse 
to be taken to the stable, walked into the parlor, 
seated himself by the fire, and demanded what 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he could have for supper. On ordinary occasions 
he was diffident and even awkward in his man- 
tiers, but here he was " at ease in his inn," and 
felt called upon to show his manhood and enact 
the experienced traveller. His person was by no 
means calculated to play off his pretensions, for 
he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, 
and an air and carriage by no means of a distin- 
guished cast. The owner of the house, however, 
soon discovered his whimsical mistake, and, being 
a man of humor, determined to indulge it, espe- 
cially as he accidentally learned that this intruding 
guest was the son of an old acquaintance. 

Accordingly, Goldsmith was " fooled to the top 
of his bent," and permitted to have full sway 
throughout the evening. Never was schoolboy 
more elated. AVhen supper was served, he most 
condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife 
and daughter should partake, and ordered a bottle 
of wine to crown the repast and benefit the house. 
His last flourish was on going to bed, when he 
gave especial orders to have a hot cake at break- 
fast. His confusion and dismay, on discovering 
the next morning that he had been swas^erin^ in 
this free and easy way in the house of a private 
gentleman, may be readily conceived. True to 
his habit of turning the events of his life to literary 
account, we find this chapter of ludicrou 5 blunder? 
and cross-purposes dramatized many years after- 
ward in his admirable comedy of " She Stoops to 
Conquer, or the Mis takes of a Night." 




CHAPTER II. 

Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family. — Goldsmith 
at the University. — Situation of a Sizer. — Tyranny of 
Wilder, the Tutor. — Pecuniary Straits. — Street-Ballads. 
College Riot. — Gallows Walsh. — College Prize. — A 
Dance interrupted. 

'HILE Oliver was making his way some- 
what negligently through the schools, 
his elder brother Henry was rejoicing 
his father's heart by his career at the Univer- 
sity. He soon distinguished himself at the ex- 
aminations, and obtained a scholarship in 1743. 
This is a collegiate distinction which serves as 
a stepping-stone in any of the learned profes- 
sions, and which leads to advancement in the Uni- 
versity should the individual choose to remain 
there. His father now trusted that he would 
push forward for that comfortable provision, a 
fellowship, and thence to higher dignities and 
emoluments. Henry, however, had the improv- 
idence or the " unworldliness " of his race: re- 
turning to the country during the succeeding 
vacation, he married for love, relinquished, of 
course, all his collegiate prospects and advantages, 
set up a school in his father's neighborhood, and 
buried his talents and acquirements for the re- 
mainder of his life in a curacy of forty pounds a 
year. 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Another matrimonial event occurred not long 
afterward in the Goldsmith family, to disturb the 
equanimity of its worthy head. This was the 
clandestine marriage of his daughter Catherine 
with a young gentleman of the name of Hodson, 
who had been confided to the care of her brother 
Henry to complete his studies. As the youth 
was of wealthy parentage, it was thought a lucky 
match for the Goldsmith family ; but the tidings 
of the event stung the bride's father to the soul. 
Proud of his integrity, and jealous of that good 
name which was his chief possession, he saw him- 
self and his family subjected to the degrading 
suspicion of having abused a trust reposed in them 
to promote a mercenary match. In the first 
transports of his feelings, he is said to have ut- 
tered a wish that his daughter mis-lit never have a 
child to briii": like shame and sorrow on her head. 
The hasty wish, so contrary to the usual benignity 
of the man, was recalled and repented of almost 
as soon as uttered ; but it was considered baleful 
in its effects by the superstitious neighborhood ; 
for, though his daughter bore three children, they 
all died before her. 

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. 
Goldsmith to ward off the apprehended impu- 
tation, but one which imposed a heavy burden 
on his family. This was to furnish a marriage 
portion of four hundred pounds, that his daughter 
might not be said to have entered her husband's 
family empty-handed. To raise the sum in cash 
was impossible ; but he assigned to Mr. Hoti&on 
liis little farm and the income of his tithes Until 



INDIGNITIES OF A "POOR STUDENT." 29 

the marriage portion should be paid. In the 
mean time, as his living did not amount to £200 
per annum, he had 10 practise the strictest econ- 
omy to pay off gradually this heavy tax incurred 
by his nice sense of honor. 

The first of his family to feel the effects of this 
economy was Oliver. The time had now arrived 
for him to be sent to the University ; and, accord- 
ingly, on the 11th June, 1745, when seventeen 
years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin ; 
but his father was no longer able to place him 
there as a pensioner, as he had done his eldest 
son Henry ; he was obliged, therefore, to enter 
him as a sizer, or " poor scholar." He was lodged 
in one of the top rooms adjoining the library of 
the building, numbered 35, where it is said his 
name may still be seen, scratched by himself upon 
a window-frame. 

A student of this class is taught and boarded 
gratuitously, and has to pay but a small sum for 
his room. It is expected, in return for these ad- 
vantages, that he will be a diligent studqpt, and 
render himself useful in a variety of ways. In 
Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's ad- 
mission, several derogatory, and, indeed, menial 
offices were exacted from the sizer, as if the 
college sought to indemnify itself for conferring 
benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged 
to sweep part of the courts in the morning ; to 
carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fel- 
lows' table, and to wait in the hall until that 
body had dined. His very dress marked the in- 
feriority of the " poor student " to his happier 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

classmates. It was a black gown of coarse stuff 
without sleeves, and a plain black cloth cap with- 
out a tassel. We can conceive nothing more 
odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which 
attached the idea of degradation to poverty, and 
placed the indigent youth of merit below the 
worthless minion of fortune. They were cal- 
culated to wound and irritate the noble mind, 
and to render the base mind baser. 

Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks 
upon youths of proud spirits and quick sensibil- 
ities became at length too notorious to be disre- 
garded. About fifty years since, on a Trinity 
Sunday, a number of persons were assembled to 
witness the college ceremonies ; and as a sizer was 
carrying up a dish of meat to the fellows' table, a 
burly citizen in the crowd made some sneering 
observation on the servility of his office. Stung 
to the quick, the high-spirited youth instantly 
flung the dish and its contents at the head of the 
sneerer. The sizer was sharply reprimanded for 
this outbreak of wounded pride, but the degrad- 
ing task was from that day forward very properly 
consigned to menial hands. 

It was with the utmost repugnance that Gold- 
smith entered college in this capacity. His shy 
and sensitive nature was affected by the inferior 
station he was doomed to hold among his gay and 
opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, 
moody and despondent. A recollection of these 
early mortifications induced him, in after-years, 
most strongly to dissuade his brother Henry, the 
clergyman, from sending a son to college od a 



HIS LOVE OF CONVIVIAL PLEASURES. 31 

like footing. " If he lias ambition, strong passions, 
and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not 
send him there, unless you have no other trade 
for him except your own." 

To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the 
college who had the peculiar control of his 
studies, the Rev. Theaker Wilder, was a man of 
violent and capricious temper, and of diametri- 
cally opposite tastes. The tutor was devoted to 
the exact sciences ; Goldsmith was for the clas- 
sics. Wilder endeavored to force his favorite 
studies upon the student by harsh means, sug- 
gested by his own coarse and savage nature. He 
abused him in presence of the class as ignorant 
and stupid ; ridiculed him as awkward and ugly, 
and at times in the transports of his temper in- 
dulged in personal violence. The effect was to 
aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aver- 
sion. Goldsmith was loud in expressing his con- 
tempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics 
and logic ; and the prejudices thus imbibed con- 
tinued through life. Mathematics he always pro- 
nounced a science to which the meanest intellects 
were competent. 

A truer cause of this distaste for the severer 
studies may probably be found in his natural 
indolence and his love of convivial pleasures. 
" I was a lover of mirth, good-humor, and even 
sometimes of fun," said he, " from my childhood." 
He sang a good song, was a boon companion, and 
could not resist any temptation to social enjoy- 
ment. He endeavored to persuade himself that 
learning and dulness went hand in hand, and that 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

genius was not to be put in harness. Even in 
riper years, when the consciousness of his own 
deficiencies ou^ht to have convinced him of the 
importance of early study, he speaks slightingly 
of college honors. 

"A lad," says he, "whose passions are not 
strong enough in youth to mislead him from that 
path of science which his tutors, and not his in- 
clination, have chalked out, by four or five years' 
perseverance will probably obtain every advan- 
tage and honor his college can bestow. I would 
tompare the man whose youth has been thus 
passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate pru- 
dence, to liquors that never ferment, and, conse- 
quently, continue always muddy." 

The death of -his worthy father, which took 
place early in 1747, rendered Goldsmith's situa- 
tion at college extremely irksome. His mother 
was left with little more than the means of pro- 
viding for the wants of her household, and was 
unable to furnish him any remittances. He 
would have been compelled, therefore, to leave 
college, had it not been for the occasional con- 
tributions of friends, the foremost among whom 
was his generous and warm-hearted uncle Conta- 
rine. Still these supplies were so scanty and 
precarious, that in the intervals between them he 
was put to great straits. "He had two college 
associates from whom he would occasionally bor- 
row small sums ; one was an early schoolmate, 
by the name of Beatty ; the other a cousin, and 
the chosen companion of his frolicks, Robert (or 
rather Bob) Bryanton, of Ballyrnulvey House. 



STREET-BALLADS. 33 

ueur tJailymaiion. When these casual supplies 
failed him, he was more than once obliged to 
raise funds for his immediate wants by pawning 
his books. At times he sank into despondency 
but he had what he termed " a knack at hoping," 
which soon buoyed him up again. He began 
now to resort to his poetical vein as a source of 
profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he pri- 
vately sold for five shillings each at a shop which 
dealt in such small wares of literature. He felt 
an author's affection for these unowned bantlings, 
and we are told would stroll privately through 
the streets at night to hear them sung, listening 
to the comments and criticisms of by-standers, and 
observing the degree of applause which each re- 
ceived. 

Edmund Burke was a fellow-student with 
Goldsmith at the college. Neither the statesman 
nor Ahe poet gave promise of their future ce- 
lebrity, though Burke certainly surpassed his 
contemporary in industry and application, and 
evinced more disposition for self-improvement, 
associating himself with a number of his fellow- 
students in a debating club, in which they dis- 
cussed literary topics, and exercised themselves 
in composition. 

Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this 
association, but his propensity was rathei to 
mingle with the gay and thoughtless. On one 
occasion we find him implicated in an affair that 
came nigh producing his expulsion. A report 
was brought to college that a scholar was in the 
hands of the bailiffs. This was an insult in 



34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

which every gownsman felt himself involved. A 
number of the scholars new to arms, and sallied 
forth to battle, headed by a hair-brained fellow 
nicknamed Gallows Walsh, noted for his aptness 
at mischief and fondness for riot. The strong- 
hold of the bailiff was carried by storm, the 
scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catch- 
pole borne off captive to the college, where, hav- 
ing no pump to put him under, they satisfied the 
demands of collegiate law by ducking him in an 
old cistern. 

Flushed with this signal victory, Gallows 
Walsh now harangued his followers, and proposed 
to break open Newgate, or the Black Dog, as the 
prison was called, and effect a general jail-de- 
livery. He was^answered by shouts of concur- 
rence, and away went the throng of madcap 
youngsters, fully bent upon putting an end to the 
tyranny of law. They were joined by the mob 
of the city, and made an attack upon the prison 
with true Irish precipitation and thoughtlessness, 
never having provided themselves with cannon to 
batter its- stone walls. A few shots from the 
prison brought them to their senses, and they 
beat a hasty retreat, two of the townsmen being 
killed, and several wotfnded. 

A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at 
the University. Four students, who had been 
ringleaders, were expelled ; four others, who had 
been prominent in the affray, were publicly ad- 
monished ; among the latter was the unlucky 
Goldsmith. 
. To make up for this disgrace, he gained, 



A DANCE INTERRUPTED. 35 

within a month afterward, one of the minoi 
prizes of the college. It is true it was one of 
the very smallest, amounting in pecuniary value 
to but thirty shillings, but it was the first distinc- 
tion he had gained in his whole collegiate career. 
This turn of success and sudden influx of wealth 
proved too much for the head of our poor stu- 
dent. He forthwith gave a supper and dance 
at his chamber to a number of young persons of 
both sexes from the city, in direct violation of 
college rules. The unwonted sound of the fiddle 
reached the ears of the implacable Wilder. He 
rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, in- 
flicted corporal punishment on the " father of the 
feast," and turned his astonished guests neck and 
heels out-of-doors. 

This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's hu- 
miliations ; he felt degraded both within college and 
without. He dreaded the ridicule of his fellow- 
students for the ludicrous termination of his orgie, 
and he was ashamed to t meet his city acquaint- 
ances after the degrading chastisement received 
in their presence, and after their own ignomin- 
ious expulsion. Above all, he felt it impossible to 
submit any longer to the insulting tyranny of Wil- 
der : he determined, therefore, to leave, not merely 
the college, but also his native land, and to bury 
what he conceived to be his irretrievable disgrace 
in some distant country. He accordingly sold his 
books and clothes, and sallied forth from the col- 
lege walls the very next day, intending to embark 
at Cork for — he scarce knew where — America, 
or any other part beyond sea. With his usual 



36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

heedless imprudence, however, he loitered about 
Dublin until his finances were reduced to a shil 
ling ; with this amount of specie he set out on his 
journey. 

For three whole days he subsisted on his shil- 
ling ; when that was spent, he parted with some of 
the clothes from his back, until, reduced almost to 
nakedness, he was four-and-twenty hours without 
food, insomuch that he declared a handful of gray 
peas, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one 
of the most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. 
Hunger, fatigue, and destitution brought down his 
spirit and calmed his anger. Fain would he have 
retraced his steps, could he have done so with 
any salvo for the lingerings of his pride. In his 
extremity he conveyed to his brother Henry in- 
formation of his distress, and of the rash project 
on which he had set out. His affectionate brother 
hastened to his relief; furnished him with money 
and clothes ; soothed his feelings with gentle coun- 
sel ; prevailed upon hip to return to college, and 
effected an indifferent reconciliation between him 
and Wilder. 

After this irregular sally upon life he remained 
nearly two years longer at the University, giving 
proofs of talent in occasional translations from the 
classics, for one of which he received a premium, 
awarded only to those who are the first in literary 
merit. Still he never made much figure at college, 
his natural disinclination to study being increased 
by the harsh treatment he continued to experience 
from his tutor. 

Among the anecdotes told of him while at col 



FINAL LEAVE OF THE UNIVERSITY. 37 

lege is one indicative of that prompt but thought- 
less and often whimsical benevolence which 
throughout life formed one of the most eccentric, 
yet endearing points of his character. He was 
engaged to breakfast one day with a college inti- 
mate, but failed to make his appearance. His 
friend repaired to his room, knocked at the door 
and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, he 
found Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin 
in feathers. A serio-comic story explained the 
circumstance. In the course of the preceding 
evening's stroll he had met with a woman with 
five children, who implored his charity. Her hus- 
band was in the hospital ; she was just from the 
country, a stranger, and destitute, without food or 
shelter for her helpless offspring. This was too 
much for the kind heart of Goldsmith. He was 
almost as poor as herself, it is true, and had no 
money in his pocket ; but he brought her to the 
college-gate, gave her the blankets from his bed 
to cover her little brood, and part of his clothes 
for her to sell and purchase food ; and, finding 
himself cold during the night, had cut open his 
bed and buried himself among the feathers. 

At length, on the 27th of February, 1749, 
0. 8., he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts, and took his final leave of the University. 
He was freed from college rule, that emancipation 
so ardently coveted by the thoughtless student, 
and which too generally launches him amid tho 
cares, the hardships, and vicissitudes of life. He 
was freed, too, from the brutal tyranny of Wilder, 
[f his kind and placable nature could retain any 



38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

resentment fcr past injuries, it might have been 
gratified by learning subsequently that the passion- 
ate career of Wilder was terminated by a violent 
death in the course of a dissolute brawl ; but 
Goldsmith took no delight in the misfortunes even 
of his enemies. 

He now returned to his friends, no longer the 
student to sport away the happy interval of vaca- 
tion, but the anxious man, who is henceforth to 
shift for himself and make his way through the 
world. In fact, he had no legitimate home to re- 
turn to. At the death of his father, the paternal 
house at Lissoy, in which Goldsmith had passed 
his childhood, had been taken by Mr. Plod- 
son, who had married his sister Catherine. His 
mother had removed to Ballymahon, where she 
occupied a small house, and had to practise the 
severest frugality. His elder brother Henry 
served the curacy and taught the school of his 
late father's parish, and lived in narrow circum- 
stances at Goldsmith's birthplace, the old goblin- 
house at Pallas. 

None of his relatives were in circumstances to 
aid him with anything more than a temporary 
home, and the aspect of every one seemed some- 
what changed. In fact, his career at college had 
disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt 
his being the great genius they had fancied him. 
He whimsically alludes to this circumstance in 
that piece of autobiography, " The Man in Black," 
in the " Citizen of the World." 

" The first opportunity my father had of find- 
jig his expectations disappointed was in the mid 



PREPARATION FOR HOLY ORDERS. 39 

:lling figure I made at the University : he had 
flattered himself that he should soon see me rising 
into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but 
was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and 
unknown. His disappointment might have been 
partly ascribed to his having overrated my talents, 
and partly to my dislike of mathematical reason- 
ings at a time when my imagination and memory, 
yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects 
than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. 
This, however, did not please my tutors, who ob- 
served, indeed, that I was a little dull, but at the 
same time allowed that I seemed to be very good 
natured, and had no harm in me." # 

The only one of his relatives who did not ap- 
pear to lose faith in him was his uncle Contarine. 
This kind and considerate man, it is said, saw 
in him a warmth of heart requiring some skill to 
direct, and a latent genius that wanted time to 
mature ; and these impressions none of his subse- 
quent follies and irregularities wholly obliterated. 
His purse and affection, therefore, as well as his 
house, were now open to him, and he became his 
chief counsellor and director after his father's 
death. He urged him to prepare for holy orders ; 
and others of his relatives concurred in the advice. 
Goldsmith had a settled repugnance to a clerical 
life. This has been ascribed by some to conscien- 
tious scruples, not considering himself of a tem- 
per and frame of mind for such a sacred office ; 
others attributed it to his roving propensities, and 
his desire to visit foreign countries ; he himself 
* Citizen of the World, letter xxvii. 



40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

gives a whimsical objection in his biography of 
the "Man in Black": — "To be obliged to wear 
a long wig when I liked a short one, or a black 
coat when I generally dressed in brown, I thought 
such a restraint upon my liberty that I absolutely 
rejected the proposal." 

In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, 
and he agreed to qualify himself for the office. 
He was now only twenty-one, and must pass two 
years of probation. They were two years of 
rather loitering, unsettled life. Sometimes he was 
at Lissoy, participating with thoughtless enjoy- 
ment in the rural sports and occupations of his 
brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson ; sometimes he was 
with his brother Henry, at the old goblin mansion 
at Pallas, assisting him occasionally in his school. 
The early marriage and unambitious retirement of 
Henry, though so subversive of the fond plans of 
his father, had proved happy in their results. He 
was already surrounded by a blooming family : 
he was contented with his lot, beloved by his 
parishioners, and lived in the daily practice of all 
the amiable virtues, and the immediate enjoyment 
of their reward. Of the tender affection inspired 
in the breast of Goldsmith by the constant kind- 
ness of this excellent brother, and of the longing 
recollection with which, in the lonely wanderings 
of after-years, he looked back upon this scene of 
domestic felicity, we have a touching instance in 
the well-known opening to his poem of " The 
Traveller": — 

" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, 
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po ; 



LIFE AT LISSOY. 41 

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee; 
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

"Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend; 
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire; 
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair : 
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd, 
Where all the ruddy family around 
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale : 
Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good." 

During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no 
study, but rather amused himself with miscella- 
neous reading ; such as biography, travels, poetry, 
novels, plays — everything, in short, that admin- 
istered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled 
along the banks of the river Inny ; where, in 
after-years, when he had become famous, his fa- 
vorite seats and haunts used to be pointed out. 
Often he joined in the rustic sports of the villa- 
gers, and became adroit at throwing the sledge, a 
favorite feat of activity and strength in Ireland. 
Recollections of these " healthful sports " we find 
in his " Deserted Village " : — 

" How often have I bless'd the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree: 
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round." 



*2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

A boon companion in all his rural amusements 
was his cousin and college crony, Robert Bryan- 
ton, with whom he sojourned occasionally at Bal- 
Lymulvey House in the neighborhood. They used 
to make excursions about the country on foot, 
sometimes fishing, sometimes hunting otter in the 
limy. They got up a country club at the little 
iim of Ballymahon, of which Goldsmith soon be- 
came the oracle and prime wit ; astonishing his 
unlettered associates by his learning, and being 
considered capital at a song and a story. From 
the rustic conviviality of the inn at Ballymahon, 
and the company which used to assemble there, 
it is surmised that he took some hints in after- 
life for his picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his 
associates : " Dick Muggins, the^exciseman ; Jack 
Slang, the horse-doctor ; little Aminidab, that 
grinds the music-box, and Tom Twist, that spins 
the pewter platter." Nay, it is thought that To- 
ny's drinking-song at the " Three Jolly Pigeons " 
was but a revival of one of the convivial catches 
at Ballymahon : — 

"Then come put the jorum about, 
And let us be merry and clever, 
Our hearts and our liquors are stout, 

Here 's the Three Jolly Pigeons forever. 
Let some .cry of woodcock or hare, 

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons, 
But of all the gay birds in the air, 
Here 's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. 

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll." 

Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and 
this rural popularity, his friends began to shake 
Mieir heads and shrug their shoulders when they 



FONDNESS FOR CLUBS. 43 

spoke of him ; and his brother Henry noted with 
anything but satisfaction his frequent visits to 
the club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however 
unscathed from this dangerous ordeal, more fortu- 
nate in this respect than his comrade Bryanton ; 
but he retained throughout life a fondness for 
clubs : often, too, in the course of his checkered 
career, he looked back to this period of rural 
sports and careless enjoyments as one of the few 
sunny spots of his cloudy life ; and though he 
ultimately rose to associate with birds of a finer 
feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after 
the " Thref Jolly Pigeons." 




CHAPTER in. 

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop. — Second Sally to see the 
World. — Takes Passage for America. — Ship sails with- 
out him. — Return on Fiddle-back.— A hospitable Friend. 
The Counsellor. 




HE time had now arrived for Goldsmith 
to apply for orders, and he presented 
himself accordingly before the Bishop 
of Elphin for ordination. We have stated his 
great objection to clerical life, the obligation to 
wear a black coat ; and, whimsical as it may 
appear, dress seems in fact to have formed an 
obstacle to his entrance into the Church. He 
had ever a passion for clothing his sturdy but 
awkward little person in gay colors ; and on this 
solemn occasion, when it was to be supposed his 
garb would be of suitable gravity, he appeared 
luminously arrayed in scarlet breeches ! He was 
rejected by the bishop : some say for want of 
sufficient studious preparation ; his rambles and 
frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels with 
the club at Ballymahon, having been much in the 
way of his theological studies ; others attribute 
his rejection to reports of his college irregulari- 
ties, which the Bishop had received from his old 
tyrant Wilder ; but those who look into the 
matter with more knowing eyes, pronounce the 
scarlet breeches to have been the fundamental 



SECOND SALLY TO SEE TEE WORLD. 43 

objection. " My friends," says Goldsmith, speak- 
ing through his humorous representative, the 
" Man in Black," — " my friends were now per- 
fectly satisfied I was undone ; and yet they 
thought it a pity for one that had not the least 
harm in him, and was So very good-natured." 
His uncle Contarine, however, still remained un- 
wavering in his kindness, though much less san- 
guine in his expectations. He now looked round 
for a humbler sphere of action, and through his 
influence and exertions Oliver was received as 
tutor in the family of a Mr. Flinn, a gentleman 
of the neighborhood. The situation was appar- 
ently respectable ; he had his seat at the table ; 
and joined the family in their domestic recrea- 
tions and their evening game at cards. There 
was a servility, however, in his position, which 
was not to his taste ; nor did his deference for 
the family increase upon familiar intercourse. 
He charged a member of it with unfair play at 
cards. A violent altercation ensued, which ended 
in his throwing up his situation as tutor. On 
being paid off he found himself in possession of 
an unheard-of amount of money. His wander- 
ing propensity and his desire to see the world 
were instantly in the ascendency. Without com- 
municating his plans or intentions to his friends, 
he procured a good horse, and, with thirty pounds 
in his pocket, made his second sally forth into the 
world, 

The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero 
of La Mancha could not have been more sur- 
prised and dismayed at one of the Don's clandes- 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

tine expeditions than were the mother and friends 
of Goldsmith when they heard of Jiis mysterious 
departure. Weeks elapsed, and nothing was seen 
or heard of him. It was feared that he had left 
the country on one of his wandering freaks, and 
Ills poor mother was deduced almost to despair 
when one day he arrived at her door almost as 
forlorn in plight as the prodigal son. Of his 
thirty pounds not a shilling was left ; and, instead 
of the goodly steed on which he had issued forth 
on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry- little 
pony, which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As 
soon as his mother was well assured of his 
safety, she rated him soundly for his inconsider- 
ate conduct. His brothers and sisters, who were 
tenderly attached to him, interfered, and suc- 
ceeded in mollifying her ire ; and whatever lurk- 
ing anger the good dame might have, was no 
doubt effectually vanquished by the following 
whimsical narrative which he drew up at his 
brother's house and dispatched to her : — 

" My dear mother, if you will sit down and 
calmly listen to what I say, you shall be fully 
resolved in every one of those many questions 
you have asked me. I went to Cork and con- 
verted my horse, which you prize so much higher 
than Fiddle-back, into cash, took my passage m 
a ship bound for America, and, at the same time, 
paid the captain for my freight and all the other 
expenses of my voyage. But it so happened 
that the wind did not answer for three weeks 
and you know, mother, that I could not command 
the elements. My misfortune was, that, when 



HOSPITABLE FRIEND. 47 

the wind served, I happened to be with a party 
in the country, and my friend the captain never 
inquired after me, but set sail with as much in- 
difference as if I had been on board. The 
remainder of my time I employed in the city and 
its environs, viewing everything curious, and you 
know no one can starve while he has money in 
his pocket. 

" Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, 
I began to think of my dear mother and friends 
whom I had left behind me, and so bought that 
generous beast, Fiddle-back, and bade adieu to 
Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. 
This, to be sure, was but a scanty allowance for 
man and horse towards a journey of above a 
hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I knew 
I must find friends on the road. 

" I recollected particularly an old and faithful 
acquaintance I made at college, who had often 
and earnestly pressed me to spend a summer 
with him, and he lived but eight miles from 
Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would 
expatiate on to me with peculiar emphasis. ' We 
shall,' says he, ' enjoy the delights of both city 
and country, and you shall command my stable 
and my purse/ 

" However, upon the way I met a poor woman 
all in tears, who told me her husband had been 
arrested for a debt he was not able to pay, and 
that his eight children must now starve, bereaved 
as they were of his industry, which had been 
their only support. I thought myself at home, 
being not far from my good friend's house 3 and 
4 



48 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

therefore parted with a moiety of all my store \ 
and pray, mother, ought I not have given her the 
other half-crown, for what she got would fae of 
little use to her? However, I soon arrived at 
the mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded 
by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at 
me and would have torn me to pieces but for the 
assistance of a woman, whose countenance was 
not less grim than that of the dog ; yet she with 
great humanity relieved me from the jaws of this 
Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up my 
name to her master. 

" Without suffering me to wait long, my old 
friend, who was then recovering from a severe fit 
of sickness, came down in his nightcap, night- 
gown, and slippers, and embraced me with the 
most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, after 
giving me a history of his indisposition, assured 
me that he considered himself peculiarly fortu- 
nate in having under his roof the man he most 
loved on earth, and whose stay with him must, 
above all things, contribute to perfect his re- 
covery. I now repented sorely I had not given 
the poor woman the other half- crown, as I 
thought all my bills of humanity would be 
punctually answered by this worthy man. I re- 
vealed to him my whole soul ; I opened to him 
all my distresses ; and freely owned that I had 
but one half-crown in my pocket; but that now, 
like a ship after weathering out the storm, I con- 
sidered myself secure in a safe and hospitable 
harbor. He made no answer, but walked about 
the room, rubbing his hands as one in deep study 



FRUGAL ENTERTAINMENT. 49 

This I imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a 
tender heart, which increased my esteem for him, 
and, as that increased, I gave the most favorable 
interpretation to his silence. I construed it into 
delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded to wound 
my pride by expressing his commiseration in 
words, leaving his generous conduct to speak for 
itself. 

" It now approached six o'clock in the evening ; 
and as I had eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits 
were raised, my appetite for dinner grew uncom- 
monly keen. At length the old woman came 
into the room with two plates, one spoon, and a 
dirty cloth, which she laid upon the table. This 
appearance, without increasing my spirits, did not 
diminish my appetite. My protectress soon re- 
turned with a small bowl of sago, a small por- 
ringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown bread, 
and the heel of an old cheese all over crawling 
with mites. My friend apologized that his illness 
obliged him to live on slops, and that better fare 
was not in the house ; observing, at the same 
time, that a milk diet was certainly the most 
healthful ; and at eight o'clock he again recom- 
mended a regular life, declaring that for his part 
he would lie down with the lamb and rise with the 
lark. My hunger was at this time so exceedingly 
sharp that I wished for another slice of the loaf, 
but was obliged to go to bed without even that 
refreshment. 

" This lenten entertainment I had received 
made me resolve to depart as soon as possible ; 
accordingly, next morning, when I spoke of going, 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather com- 
mended my design, adding some very sage counsel 
upon the occasion. ' To be sure,' said he, i the 
longer you stay away from your mother, the more 
you will grieve her and your other friends ; and 
possibly they are already afflicted at hearing of 
this foolish expedition you have made/ Notwith- 
standing all this, and without any hope of soften- 
ing such a sordid heart, I again renewed the tale 
of my distress, and asking ' how he thought I 
could travel above a hundred miles upon one half- 
crown ? ' I bested to borrow a single guinea, 
which I assured him should be repaid with thanks. 
i And you know, sir,' said I, ' it is no more than 
I have done for you.' To which he firmly an- 
swered, ' Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is 
neither here nor there. I have paid you all you 
ever lent me, and this sickness of mine has left 
me bare of cash. But I have bethought myself 
of a conveyance for you ; sell your horse, and I 
will furnish you a much better one to ride on.' 
I readily grasped at his proposal, and begged to 
see the nag ; on which he led me to his bed- 
chamber, and from under the bed he pulled out 
a stout oak stick. ' Here he is,' said he '; ' take 
this in your hand, and it will carry you to your 
mother's with more safety than such a horse as 
you ride.' I was in doubt, when I got it into my 
hand, whether I should not, in the first place, 
apply it to his pate ; but a rap at the street-door 
made the wretch fly to it, and when I returned 
to the parlor he introduced me, as if nothing of 
the kind had happened, to the gentleman who 



CHANCE COURTESIES. 51 

entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious 
and worthy friend, of whom he had so often heard 
him speak with rapture. I could scarcely compose 
myself; and must have betrayed indignation in 
my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor- 
at-law in the neighborhood, a man of engaging 
aspect and polite address. 

" After spending an hour, he asked my Mend 
and me to dine with him at his house. This I 
declined at first, as I wished to have no farther 
communication with my hospitable friend ; but 
at the solicitation of both I at last consented, 
determined as I was by two motives : one, that 1 
was prejudiced in favor of the looks and manner 
of the counsellor ; and the other, that I stood in 
need of a comfortable dinner. And there, indeed, 
I found everything that I could wish, abundance 
without profusion, and elegance without affecta- 
tion. In the evening, when my old friend, who 
had eaten very plentifully at his neighbor's table, 
but talked again of lying down with the lamb, 
made a motion to me for retiring, our generous 
host requested I should take a bed with him, 
upon which I plainly told my old friend that he 
might go home and take care of the horse he had 
given me, but that I should never reenter his 
doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving me 
to add this to the other little things the counsellor 
already knew of his plausible neighbor. 

" And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient 
to reconcile me to all my follies ; for here I spent 
three whole days. The counsellor had two sweet 
girls to his daughters, who played enchantingly on 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the harpsichord ; and yet it was but a melancholy 
pleasure I felt the first time I heard them ; for 
that bein£ the first time also that either of them 
had touched the instrument since their mother's 
death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down 
their father's cheeks. I every day endeavored 
to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged 
to stay. On my going, the counsellor offered me 
his purse, with a horse and servant to convey me 
home ; but the latter I declined, and only took a 
guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the 
road. Oliver Goldsmith. 

" To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Bally mahon." 

Such is the story given by the poet-errant of 
this his second sally in quest of adventures. We 
cannot but think it was here and there touched 
up a little with the fanciful pen of the future 
essayist, with a view to amuse his mother and 
soften her vexation ; but even in these respects it 
is valuable as showing the early play of his 
humor, and his happy knack of extracting sweets 
from that worldly experience which to others 
yields nothing but bitterness. 




CHAPTER IV. 

Sallies forth as a Law Student. — Stumbles at the Outset. — 
Cousin Jane and the Valentine. — A Family Oracle.— 
Sallies forth as a Student of Medicine. — Hocus-pocus of 
a Boarding-House. — Transformations of a Leg of Mutton. 
The mock Ghost. — Sketches of Scotland. — Trials of 
Toadyism. — A Poet's Purse for a Continental Tour. 

,?JSjJS||l NEW consultation was held among 
^Np^iL Goldsmith's friends as to his future 
<^±^§ course, and it was determined he should 
try the law. His uncle Contarine agreed to 
advance the necessary funds, and actually fur- 
nished him with fifty pounds, with which he set 
off for London, to enter on his studies at the 
Temple. Unfortunately, he fell in company at 
Dublin with a Roscommon acquaintance, one 
whose wits had been sharpened about town, who 
beguiled him into a gambling-house, and soon left 
him as penniless as when he bestrode the re- 
doubtable Fiddle-back. 

He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of 
gross heedlessness and imprudence, that he re- 
mained some time in Dublin without communi- 
cating to his friends his destitute condition. 
They heard of it, however, and he was invited 
back to the country, and indulgently forgiven by 
his generous uncle, but less readily by his mother, 
who was mortified and 'disheartened at seeing all 
her early hopes of hirn so repeatedly blighted. 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

His brother Henry, too, began to lose patience at 
these successive failures, resulting from thought- 
less indiscretion ; and a quarrel took place, which 
for some time interrupted their usually affection- 
ate intercourse. 

The only home where poor erring Goldsmith 
still received a welcome, was the parsonage of 
his affectionate forgiving uncle. Here he used 
to talk of literature with the good simple-hearted 
man, and delight him and his daughter with his 
verses. Jane, his early playmate, was now the 
woman grown ; their intercourse was of a more 
intellectual kind than formerly ; they discoursed 
of poetry and music ; she played on the harpsi- 
chord, and he accompanied her with his flute. The 
music may not have been very artistic, as he 
never performed but by ear ; it had probably as 
much merit as the poetry, which, if we may 
judge by the following specimen, was as yet but 
juvenile : — 

TO A YOUNG LADY ON VALENTINE'S DAY. 

WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART. 

With submission at your shrine, 
Comes a heart your Valentine ; 
From the side where once it grew. 
See it panting flies to you. 
Take it, fair one, to your breast, 
Soothe the fluttering thing to rest; 
Let the gentle, s.potless toy 
Be your sweetest, greatest joy; 
Every night when wrapp'd in sleep. 
Next your heart the conquest keep ; 
Or if dreams your fancy move. 
Hear it whisper me and love ; 



TEE FAMILY ORACLE. 55 

Then in pity to the swain, 
Who must heartless else remain, 
Soft as gentle dewy show'rs, 
Slow descend on April flow'rs ; 
Soft as gentle riv'lets glide, 
Steal unnoticed to my side ; 
If the gem you have to spare, 
Take your own and place it there. 

If this Valentine was intended for the fair 
Jane, and expressive of a tender sentiment in- 
dulged by the stripling poet, it was unavailing ; 
as not long afterwards she was married to a Mr. 
Lawder. We trust, however, it was but a poeti- 
cal passion of that transient kind which grows up 
in idleness and exhales itself in rhyme. While 
Oliver was thus piping and poetizing at the par- 
sonage, his uncle Contarine received a visit from 
Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne, — a kind of magnate 
in the wide but improvident family connection, 
throughout which his word was law and almost 
gospel. This august dignitary was pleased to 
discover signs of talent in Oliver, and suggested 
that, as he had attempted divinity and law with- 
out success, he should now try physic. The 
advice came from too important a source to be 
disregarded, and it was determined to send him to 
Edinburgh to commence his studies. The Dean 
having given the advice, added to it, we trust, 
his blessing, but no money ; that was furnished 
from the scantier purses of Goldsmith's brother, 
his sister (Mrs. Hodson), and his ever-ready 
uncle, Contarine. 

It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith 
arrived in Edinburgh. His outset in that city 



56 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

came near adding to the list of his indiscretions 
and disasters. Having taken lodgings at haphaz- 
ard, he left his trunk there, containing all his 
worldly effects, and sallied forth to see the town. 
After sauntering about the streets until a late 
hour, he thought of returning home, when, to his 
confusion, he found he had not acquainted him- 
self with the name either of his landlady or of 
the street in which she lived. Fortunately, in 
the height of his whimsical perplexity, he met the 
cawdy or porter who had carried his trunk, and 
who now served him as a guide. 

He did not remain long in the lodgings in 
which he had put up. The hostess was too 
adroit at that hocus-pocus of the table which often 
is practised in cheap boarding-houses. No one 
could conjure a single joint through a greater 
variety of forms. A loin of mutton, according to 
Goldsmith's account, would serve him and two 
fellow-students a whole week. " A brandered 
chop was served up one day, a fried steak another, 
collops with onion-sauce a third, and so on until 
the fleshy parts were quite consumed, when finally 
a dish of broth was manufactured from the bones 
on the seventh day, and the landlady rested from 
her labors." Goldsmith had a good-humored mode 
of taking things, and for a short time amused him- 
self with the shifts and expedients of his landlady, 
which struck him in a ludicrous manner ; he soon, 
however, fell in with fellow-students from his 
own country, whom he joined at more eligible 
quarters. 

He now attended medical lectures, and attached 



CARELESSNESS IN MONEY-MATTERS. 57 

himself to an association of students called the 
Medical Society. He set out, as usual, with the 
best intentions, but, as usual, soon fell into idle, 
convivial, thoughtless habits. Edinburgh was in- 
deed a place of sore trial for one of his temper- 
ament. Convivial meetings were all the vogue, 
and the tavern was the universal rallying-place of 
good-fellowship. And then Goldsmith's intimacies 
lay chiefly among the Irish students, who were 
always ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among 
them he was a prime favorite and somewhat of a 
leader, from his exuberance of spirits, his vein of 
humor, and his talent at singing an Irish song 
and telling an Irish story. 

His usual carelessness in money-matters at- 
tended him. Though his supplies from home were 
scanty and irregular, he never could bring himself 
into habits of prudence and economy ; often he 
was stripped of all his present finances at play ; 
' often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded 
charity or generosity. Sometimes among his 
boon companions he assumed a ludicrous swagger 
in money-matters, which no one afterward was 
more ready than himself to laugh at. At a con- 
vivial meeting with a number of his fellow-stu- 
dents he suddenly proposed to draw lots with any 
one present which of the two should treat the 
whole party to the play. The moment the propo- 
sition had bolted from his lips, his heart was 
in his throat. " To my great though secret joy,' 
said he, " they all declined the challenge. Had it 
been accepted, and had I proved the loser, a part 
of my wardrobe must have been pledged in order 
to raise the money. 1 ' 



58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

At another of these meetings there was an 
earnest dispute on the question of ghosts, some 
being firm believers in the possibility of departed 
spirits returning to visit their friends and familiar 
haunts. One of the disputants set sail the next 
day for London, but the vessel put back through 
stress of weather. His return was unknown 
except to one of the believers in ghosts, who con- 
certed with him a trick to be played off on the 
opposite party. In the evening, at a meeting of 
the students, the discussion was renewed ; and 
one of the most strenuous opposers of ghosts was 
asked whether he considered himself proof 
against ocular demonstration. He persisted in 
his scoffing. Some solemn process of conjuration 
was performed, and the comrade supposed to be 
on his way to London made his appearance. 
The effect was fatal. The unbeliever fainted at 
the sight, and ultimately went mad. We have 
no account of what share Goldsmith took in this 
transaction, at which he was present. 

The following letter to his friend Bryanton 
contains some of Goldsmith's impressions concern- 
ing Scotland and its inhabitants, and gives indica- 
tions of that humor which characterized some of 
his later writings. 

" Robert Bryanton, at Ballymahon, Ireland. 
" Edinburgh, September 26th, 1753. 

"* My dear Bob, — 

" How many good excuses (and you know I 
was ever good at an excuse) might I call up to 
vindicate my past shameful silence. I might tell 



SKETCHES OF SCOTLAND. 59 

how I wrote a long letter on my first coming 
hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving 
an answer; I might allege that business (with 
business you know I was always pestered) had 
never given me time to finger a pen. But I 
suppress those and twenty more as plausible, and 
as easily invented, since they might be attended 
with a slight inconvenience of being known to be 
lies. Let me then speak truth. An hereditary 
indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has 
hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still 
prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters 
more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turn- 
spit-dog gets up into his wheel with more reluc- 
tance than I sit down to write ; yet no dog ever 
loved the roast meat he turns better than I do 
him I now address. 

" Yet what shall I say now I am entered ? 
Shall I tire you with a description of this unfruit- 
ful country ; where I must lead you over their 
hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarce- 
ly able to feed a rabbit ? Man alone seems to be 
the only creature who has arrived to the natural 
size in this poor soil. Every part of the country 
presents the same dismal landscape. No grove, 
nor brook, lend their music to cheer the stranger, 
or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. 
Yet with all these disadvantages to call him down 
to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proudest 
things alive. The poor have pride ever ready to 
relieve them. If mankind should happen to 
despise them, they are masters of their own ad- 
miration ; and that they can plentifully bestow 
jpon themselves. 



tiO OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" From their pride and poverty, as I take it, re- 
sults one advantage this country enjoys ; namely, 
the gentlemen here are much better bred than 
among us. No such character here as our fox- 
hunters ; and they have expressed great surprise 
when I informed them that some men in Ireland, 
of one thousand pounds a year, spend their whole 
lives in running after a hare, and drinking to be 
drunk. Truly, if such a being, equipped in his 
hunting-dress, came among a circle of Scotch gen- 
tly, they woulll behold him with the same astonish- 
ment that a countryman does King George on 
horseback. 

" The men here have generally high cheek- 
bones, and are lean and swarthy, fond of action, 
dancing in particular. Now that I have men- 
tioned dancing, let me say something of their 
balls, which are very frequent here. When a 
stranger enters the dancing-hall, he sees one end 
of the room taken up by the ladies, who sit dis- 
mally in a group by themselves ; — in the other 
end stand their pensive partners that are to be ; — « 
but no more intercourse between the sexes than 
there is between two countries at war. The la- 
dies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh ; 
but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. 
At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady direc- 
tress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches upon 
a lady and gentleman to walk a minuet ; which 
they perform with a formality that approaches to 
despondence. After five or six couple have thus 
walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country 
dances ; each gentleman furnished with a partner 
from the aforesaid lady directress ; so they dance 



SKETCHES OF SCOTLAND. 61 

much, say nothing, and thus concludes our assem- 
bly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such pro- 
found silence resembled the ancient procession of 
the Roman matrons in honor of Ceres ; and the 
Scotch gentleman told me (and, faith I believe 
he was right) that I was a very great pedant foi 
my pains. 

" Now I am come to the ladies ; and to show 
that I love Scotland, and everything that belong? 
to so charming a country, I insist on it, and will 
give him leave to break my head that denies it — ■ 
that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times finer 
and handsomer than the Irish. To be sure, now, 
I see your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly sur- 
prised at my partiality, — but tell them flatly, I 
don't value them — or their fine skins, or eyes, or 

good sense, or , a potato ; — for I say, and 

will maintain it ; and as a convincing proof (I am 
in a great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch 
ladies say it themselves. But to be less serious ; 
where will you find a language so prettily become 
a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch ? And the 
women here speak it in its highest purity ; for in- 
stance, teach one of your young ladies at home to 
pronounce the " Whoar wull I gong ? " with a be- 
coming widening of mouth, and 1 11 lay my life 
they '11 wound every hearer. 

" We have no such character here as a coquette, 
but alas ! how many envious pH§les ! Some days 
ago I walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be 
surprised, my lord is but a glover),* when the 

♦William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son 
succeeded in establishing; the claim in 1773. The father is 



62 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her 
beauty to her ambition, and her inward peace to 
a title and gilt equipage) passed by in her char- 
iot ; her battered husband, or more properly the 
guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight 
envy began, in the shape of no less than three la- 
dies who sat with me, to find faults in her fault- 
less form. — ' For my part,' says the first, i I think 
what I always thought, that the Duchess has too 
much of the red in her complexion.' i Madam, I 
am of your opinion,' says the second ; ' I think 
her face has a palish cast too much on the deli- 
cate order.' ' And, let me tell you,' added the 
third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to the 
size of an issue, ' that the Duchess has fine lips, 
but she wants a mouth.' — At this every lady 
drew up her mouth as if going to pronounce the 
letter P. 

" But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to 
ridicule women with whom I have scarcely any 
correspondence ! There are, 't is certain, hand- 
some women here ; and 't is certain they have 
handsome men to keep them company. An ugly 
and poor man is society only for himself; and 
such society the world lets me enjoy in great 
abundance. Fortune has given you circum- 
stances, and Nature a person to look charming in 
the eyes of the fair. Nor do I envy my dear Bob 
such blessings, "\0ile I may sit down and laugh 
at the world and at myself — the most ridiculous 

Baid to have voted at the election of the sixteen Peers fo* 
Scotland; and to have sold gloves in the lobhy at this an(* 
other public assemblages. 



EXCURSION TO THE HICHLANDS. 63 

object in it. But you see I am grown downright 
splenetic, and perhaps the fit may continue till I 
receive an answer to this. I know you cannot 
send me much news from Ballymahon, but such 
as it is, send it all ; everything you send will be 
agreeable to me. 

" Has George Conway put up a sign yet ; or 
John Binley left off drinking drams ; or Tom 
Allen got a new wig ? But I leave you to your 
own choice what to write. While I live, know 
you have a true friend in yours, &c. &c. &c. 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

« p. S. — Give my sincere respects (not compli- 
ments, do you mind) to your agreeable family, 
and give my service to my mother, if you see 
her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have a 
sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, 
, Student in Physic, in Edinburgh." 

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from 
his pen during his residence in Edinburgh ; and 
indeed his poetical powers, highly as they had 
been estimated by his friends, had not as yet pro- 
duced anything of superior merit. He made on 
one occasion a month's excursion to the High- 
lands. " I set out the first day on foot," says he, 
in a letter to his uncle Contarine, " but an ill- 
natured corn I have on my toe has for the future 
prevented that cheap mode of travelling ; so the 
second day I hired a horse, about the size of a 
ram, and he walked away (trot he could not) as 
pensive as his master." 

During his residence in Scotland his convivial 
5 



64 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

talents gained him at one time attentions in a 
high quarter, which, however, he had the good 
sense to appreciate correctly. " I have spent," 
says he, in one of his letters, " more than a fort- 
night every second day at the Duke of Hamil- 
ton's.; but it seems they like me more as a jester 
than as a companion, so I disdained so servile an 
employment as unworthy my calling as a physi- 
cian." Here we again find the origin of another 
passage in his autobiography, under the character 
of the " Man in Black," wherein that worthy fig- 
ures as a flatterer to a great man. " At first," 
says he, " I was surprised that the situation of a 
flatterer at a great man's table could be thought 
disagreeable ; there was no great trouble in listen- 
ing attentively when his lordship spoke, and laugh- 
ing when he looked round for applause. This, 
even good manners might have ^obliged me to per- 
form. I found, however, too soon, his lordship 
was a greater dunce than myself, and from that 
moment flattery was at an end. I now rather 
aimed at setting him right than at receiving his 
absurdities with submission : to flatter those we 
do not know is an easy task ; but to flatter our 
intimate acquaintances, all whose foibles are 
strongly in our eyes, is drudgery insupportable. 
Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my 
falsehood went to my conscience ; his lordship 
soon perceived me to be very unfit for his service : 
I was therefore discharged ; my patron at the 
same time being graciously pleased to observe 
that he believed I was tolerably good-natured 
and had not the least harm in me." 



PLANS FOR STUDY ON THE CONTINENT. Co 

After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Gold- 
smith prepared to finish his medical studies on the 
Continent, for which his uncle Contarine agreed 
to furnish the funds. " I intend," said he, in a 
letter to his uncle, " to visit Paris, where the great 
Farheim, Petit, and Du Hamel de Monceau 
instruct their pupils in all the branches of medicine. 
They speak French, and consequently I shall have 
much the advantage of most of my countrymen, 
as I am perfectly acquainted with that language, 
and few who leave Ireland are so. I shall spend 
the spring and summer in Paris, and the beginning 
of next winter go to Leyden. The great Albinus 
is still alive there, and 'twill be proper to go, 
though only to have it said that we have studied 
in so famous a university. 

" As I shall not have another opportunity of re- 
ceiving money from your bounty till my return to 
Ireland, so I have drawn for the last sum that I 
hope I shall ever trouble you for ; 't is £20. And 
now, dear sir, let me here acknowledge the humil- 
ity of the station in which you found me ; let me 
tell how I was despised by most, and hateful to 
myself. Poverty, hopeless poverty, was my lot, 
and Melancholy was beginning to make me her 

own, when you But I stop here, to inquire 

how your health goes on ? How does my cousin 
Jenny, and has she recovered her late complaint ? 
How does my poor Jack Goldsmith ? I fear his 
disorder is of such a nature as he won't easily 
recover. I wish, my dear sir, you would make 
me happy by another letter before I go abroad, 
for there I shall hardly hear from you. . . . Give 



C6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

my — how shall I express it ? — give my earnest 
love to Mr and Mrs. Lawder." 

Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate — 
the object of his valentine — his first poetical in- 
spiration. She had been for some time married. 

Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was 
the ostensible motive for this visit to the Continent, 
but the real one, in all probability, was his long- 
cherished desire to see foreign parts. This, how- 
ever, he would not acknowledge even to himself, 
but sought to reconcile his roving propensities with 
some grand moral purpose. " I esteem the travel- 
ler who instructs the heart," says he, in one of his 
subsequent writings, " but I despise him who only 
indulges the imagination. A man who leaves 
home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher ; 
but he who goes from country to country, guided 
by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vaga- 
bond." He, of course, was to travel as a philoso- 
pher, and in truth his outfits for a Continental 
tour were in character. " I shall carry just £33 
to France," said he, " with good store of clothes, 
shirts, &c, and that with economy will suffice." He 
forgot to make mention of his fiute, which it will 
be found had occasionally to come in play when 
economy could not replenish his purse, nor philos- 
ophy find him a supper. Thus slenderly provided 
with money, prudence or experience, and almost 
as slightly guarded against " hard knocks " as the 
hero of La Mancha, whose head-piece was half 
iron, half pasteboard, he made his final sally forth 
upon the world ; hoping all things ; believing all 
things : little anticipating the checkered ills in 



THE LAST SALLY UPON THE WORLD. 67 



store for him ; little thinking when he penned his 
valedictory letter to his good uncle Contarine, that 
he was never to see him more ; never to return 
after all his wandering to the friend of his infancy ; 
never to revisit his early and fondly remembered 
haunts at " sweet Lissoy " and Ballymahon., 



ftvzyg. 





CHAPTER V. 

The agreeable Fellow-Passengers. — Risks from Friends picked 
up by the Wayside. — Sketches of Holland and the Dutch. 
Shifts while a poor Student at Leyden. — -The Tulip-Spec- 
ulation. — The provident Flute. — Sojourn at Paris. — 
Sketch of Voltaire. — Travelling Shifts of a Philosophic 
Vagabond. 

f IS usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith 
' at the very outset of his foreign enter- 
prise. He had intended to take ship- 
ping at Leith for Holland ; but on arriving at 
that port, he found a ship about to sail for Bor- 
deaux, with six agreeable passengers, whose ac- 
quaintance he had probably made at the inn. He 
was not a man to resist a sudden impulse ; so, in- 
stead of embarking for Holland, he found himself 
ploughing the seas on his way to the other side 
of the continent. Scarcely had the ship been two 
days at sea, when she was driven by stress of 
weather to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here "of 
course" Goldsmith and his agreeable fellow-pas- 
sengers found it expedient to go on shore and 
"refresh themselves after the fatigues of the voy- 
age;' " Of course " they frolicked and made mer- 
ry until a late hour in the evening, when, in the 
midst of their hilarity, the door was burst open, 
and a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered with 
'fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial part j 
prisoners. 



SKETCHES OF HOLLAND. 60 

It seems that the agreeable companions with 
whom our greenhorn had struck up such a sudden 
intimacy, were Scotchmen in the French service, 
who had been in Scotland enlisting recruits for 
the French army. 

In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence ; he 
was marched off with his fellow-revellers to prison 
whence he with difficulty obtained his release at 
the end of a fortnight. With his customary facility, 
however, at palliating his misadventures, he found 
everything turn out for the best. His imprison- 
ment saved his life, for during his detention the ship 
proceeded on her voyage, but was wrecked at the 
mouth of the Garonne, and all on board perished. 

Goldsmith's second embarkation was for Hol- 
land direct, and in nine days he arrived at Rotter- 
dam, whence he proceeded, without any more 
deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical 
picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of 
the Hollanders. " The modern Dutchman is quite 
a different creature from him of former times : he 
in everything imitates a Frenchman but in his 
easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, 
and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might 
have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are 
the better bred. But the downright Hollander 
is one of the oddest figures in nature. Upon a 
lank head of hair he wears a half- cocked narrow 
hat, laced with black ribband ; no coat, but seven 
waistcoats and nine pair of breeches, so that his 
Uips reach up almost to his armpits. This well- 
ulothed vegetable is now fit to see company or make 
love But what a pleasing creature is the object 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of liis appetite ! why, she wears a large fur cap, 
with a deal of Flanders lace ; and for every pair 
of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats. 

" A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phleg- 
matic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, 
sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove of 
coals, which, when she sits, she snugs under her 
petticoats, and at this chimney, dozing Strephon 
lights his pipe." 

In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and 
Holland. " There, hills and rocks intercept ever} 
prospect ; here, it is all a continued plain. There 
you might see a well-dressed Duchess issuing 
from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman 
inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be com- 
pared to a tulip, planted in dung ; but I can never 
see a Dutchman in his own house, but I think of 
a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox." 

The country itself awakened his admiration. 
" Nothing," said he,' " can equal its beauty ; wher- 
ever I turn my eyes, fine houses, elegant gardens, 
statues, grottos, vistas, present themselves ; but 
when you enter their towns, you are charmed be- 
yond description. No misery is to. be seen here , 
every one is usefully employed." And again, in 
his noble description in " The Traveller " : 

" To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Methinks her patient sons before me stand. 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
And, sedi lous to stop the coming tide, 
Lifts the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow; 



SHIFTS AS A STUDENT. 71 

Spreads Its long arms amid the watery roar, 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 
Sees an amphibioiis world before him smile: 
The slow canal, the yellow blossom' d vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 
A new creation rescued from his reign." 

He remained about a year at Leyden, attend- 
ing the lectures of Gaubius or chemistry and 
Albinus on anatomy ; though his studies are said 
to have been miscellaneous, and directed to liter- 
ature rather than science. The thirty -three 
pounds with which he had set out on his travels 
were soon consumed, and he was put to many a 
shift to meet his expenses until his precarious 
remittances should arrive. He had a good friend 
on these occasions in a fellow-student and coun- 
tryman, named Ellis, who afterwards rose to 
eminence as a physician. Pie used frequently to 
loan small sums to Goldsmith, which were always 
scrupulously paid. Ellis discovered the innate 
merits of the poor awkward student, and used to 
declare in after-life that " it was a common re- 
mark in Leyden, that in all the peculiarities of 
Goldsmith, an elevation of mind was to be noted ; 
a philosophical tone and manner ; the feelings of 
a gentleman, and the language and information 
of a scholar." 

Sometimes, in his emergencies, Goldsmith un- 
dertook to teach the English language. It is true 
he was ignorant of the Dutch, but he had a 
smattering of the French, picked up among the 
Irish priests at Ballymahon. He depicts Ins 



72 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

whimsical embarrassment in this respect, in hia 
account in the "Vicar of Wakefield" of t\\e philo- 
sophical vagabond who went to Holland to teach 
the natives English, without knowing a word of 
their own language. Sometimes, when sorely 
pinched, and sometimes, perhaps, when flush, he 
resorted to the gambling-tables, which in those 
days abounded in Holland. His good friend 
Ellis repeatedly warned him against this unfortu- 
nate propensity, but in vain. It brought its own 
cure, or rather its own punishment, by stripping 
him of every shilling. 

Ellis once more stepped hi to his relief with a 
true Irishman's generosity, but with more consid- 
erateness than generally characterizes an Irish- 
man, for he only granted pecuniary aid on condi- 
tion of his quitting the sphere of danger. Gold- 
smith gladly consented to leave Holland, being 
anxious to visit other parts. He intended to 
proceed to Paris and pursue his studies there, 
and was furnished by his friend with money for 
the journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the 
garden of a florist just before quitting Leyden. 
The tulip-mania was still prevalent in Holland, 
and some species of that splendid flower brought 
immense prices. In wandering through the gar- 
den, Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Conta* 
rine was a tulip -fancier. The thought suddenly 
struck him that here was an opportunity of tes- 
tifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of that 
generous uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant, 
his hand was in his pocket ; a number of choice 
and costly tulip-roots were purchased and packed % 



TOUR OF THE CONTINENT ON FOOT. 73 

up for Mr. Contarine ; and it was not until he 
had paid for them that he bethought himself that 
he had spent all the money borrowed for his 
travelling expenses. Too proud, however, to 
give up his journey, and too shamefaced to make 
another appeal to his friend's liberality, he de- 
termined to travel on foot, and depend upon 
chance and good luck for the means of getting 
forward ; and it is said that he actually set off 
on a tour of the Continent, in February, 1755, 
with but one spare shirt, a flute, and a single 
guinea. 

" Blessed," says one of his biographers, " with 
a good constitution, an adventurous spirit, arid 
with that thoughtless, or, perhaps, happy disposi- 
tion which takes no care for to-morrow, he con- 
tinued his travels for a long time in spite of 
innumerable privations." In his amusing narrative 
of the adventures of a " Philosophic Vagabond " 
in the " Vicar of Wakefield," we find shadowed 
out the expedients he pursued. "I had some 
knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice ; I now 
turned what was once my amusement into a pres- 
ent means of subsistence. I passed among the 
harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such 
of the French as were poor enough to be very 
merry, for 1 ever found them sprightly in propor- 
tion to their wants. Whenever I approached a 
peasant's house towards nightfall, I played one of 
my merriest tunes, and that procured me not only 
a lodging, but subsistence for the next day ; but 
in truth I must own, whenever I attempted to 
entertain persons of a higher rank, they always 



74 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

thought my performance odious, and never made 
me any return for my endeavors to please them. 

At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of 
Rouelle, then in great vogue, where he says he 
witnessed as bright a circle of beauty as graced 
the court of Versailles. His love of theatricals 
also led him to attend the performances of the 
celebrated actress Mademoiselle Clairon, with 
which he was greatly delighted. He seems to 
have looked upon the state of society with the 
eye of a philosopher, but to have read the signs 
of the times with the prophetic eye of a poet. 
In his rambles about the environs of Paris he 
was struck with the immense quantities of game 
running about almost in a tame state ; and saw in 
those costly and rigid preserves for the amuse- 
ment and luxury of the privileged few, a sure 
" badge of the slavery of the people." This sla- 
very he predicted was drawing towards a close. 
" When I consider that these parliaments, the 
members of which are all created by the court, 
and the presidents of which can only act by im- 
mediate direction, presume even to mention privi- 
leges and freedom, who till of late received direc- 
tions from the throne with implicit humility ; 
when this is considered, I cannot help fancying 
that the genius of Freedom has entered that king- 
dom in disguise. If they have but three weak 
monarchs more successively on the throne, the 
mask will be laid aside, and the country will cer- 
tainly once more be free." Events have testified 
to the sage forecast of the poet. 

During a brief sojourn in Paris, he appears to 



SKETCH OF VOLTAIRE. 75 

have gained access to valuable society, and to 
have had the honor and pleasure of making the 
acquaintance of Voltaire ; of whom, in after-years, 
he wrote a memoir. " As a companion," says he, 
" no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to 
lead the conversation ; which, however, was not 
always the case. In company which he either 
disliked or despised, few could be more reserved 
than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, 
and got over a hesitating manner, which sometimes 
he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. 
His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather 
beauty : every muscle in it had meaning, and his 
eye beamed with unusual brightness. The per 
son who writes this memoir," continues he, " re- 
members to have seen him in a select company of 
wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject 
happened to turn upon English taste and learning. 
Fontenelle, (then nearly a hundred years old,) 
who was of the party, and who being unac- 
quainted with the language or authors of the 
country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit 
truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who 
liked the English, and knew something of their 
literary pretensions, attempted to vindicate their 
poetry and learning, but with unequal abilitiesv 
The company quickly perceived that Fontenelle 
was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at 
the silence which Voltaire had preserved all the 
former part of the night, particularly as the con- 
versation happened to turn upon one of his favor- 
ite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph un- 
til about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

at last roused from his reverie. His whole framu 
seemed animated. He be^an his defence with 
the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now 
and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon 
his antagonist ; and his harangue lasted till three 
in the morning. I must confess, that, whether 
from national partiality, or from the elegant sensi- 
bility of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor 
did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he 
gained in this dispute." Goldsmith's ramblings 
took him into Germany and Switzerland, from 
which last-mentioned country he sent to his 
brother in Ireland the first brief, sketch, after- 
wards amplified into his poem of the " Traveller." 

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a 
mongrel young gentleman, son of a London pawn- 
broker, who had been suddenly elevated into for- 
tune and absurdity by the death of an uncle. 
The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had 
been an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant 
pettifogger in money-matters. Never were two 
beings more illy assorted than he and Goldsmith. 
We may form an idea of the tutor and the pupil 
from the following extract from the narrative of 
the " Philosophic Vagabond." 

" I was to be the young gentleman's governor, 
but with a proviso that he could always be per- 
mitted to govern himself. My pupil, in fact, un- 
derstood the art of guiding in money-concerns 
much better than I. He was heir to a fortune 
of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him 
by an uncle in the West Indies ; and his guar- 
dians, to qualify him for the management of it, 



TRAVELLING SHIFTS. 77 

had bound him apprentice to an attorney'. Thus 
avarice was his prevailing passion ; all his ques- 
tions on the road were, how money might be 
saved, — which was the least expensive course of 
travel, — whether anything could be bought that 
would turn to account when disposed of again in 
London ? Such curiosities on the way as could 
be seen for nothing he was ready enough to look 
at ; but if the sight of them was to be paid for, he 
usually asserted that he had been told that they 
were not worth seeing. He never paid a bill that 
he would not observe how amazingly expensive 
travelling was ; and all this though not yet 
twenty-one." 

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows 
forth his annoyances as travelling tutor to this 
concrete young gentleman, compounded of the 
pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the West Indian 
heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They 
had continual difficulties on all points of expense 
until they reached Marseilles, where both were 
glad to separate. 

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome 
duties of " bear-leader," and with some of his 
pay, as tutor, in his pocket, Goldsmith continued 
his half vagrant peregrinations through part of 
France and Piedmont and some of the Italian 
States. He had acquired, as has been shown, 
a habit of shifting along and living by expedients, 
\md a new one presented itself in Italy. " My 
skill in music," says he, in the " Philosophic Vag- 
abond," " could avail me nothing in a country 
where £very peasant was a better musician than 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

I ; but by this time I had acquired another tal- 
ent, which answered my purpose as well, and 
this was a skill in disputation. In all the for- 
eign universities and convents there are, upon cer- 
tain days, philosophical theses maintained against 
every adventitious disputant, for which, if the 
champion opposes with any dexterity, he can 
claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed 
for one night." Though a poor wandering scholar, 
his reception in these learned piles was as free 
from humiliation as in the cottages of the peas- 
antry. " With the members of these establish- 
ments," said he, " I could converse on topics of 
literature, and then I always forgot the meanness 
of my circumstances" 

At Padua, where he remained some months, 
he is said to have taken his medical degree. It 
is probable he was brought to a pause in this city 
by the illness of his uncle Contarine ; who had 
hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occa- 
sional, though, of course, slender remittances. 
Deprived of this source of supplies, he wrote to 
his friends in Ireland, and especially to his brother- 
in-law, Hodson, describing his destitute situation. 
His letters brought him neither money nor reply. 
Tt appears, from subsequent correspondence, that 
bis brother-in-law actually exerted himself to 
raise a subscription for his assistance among his 
relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without 
success. Their faith and hope in him were most 
probably at an end ; as yet he had disappointed 
them at every point, he had given none of the 
anticipated proofs of talent, and they \fbre too 



HIS MAGIC FLUTE. 79 

poor to support what they may have considered 
the wandering propensities of a heedless spend- 
thrift. 

Thus left to his own precarious resources. 
Goldsmith gave up all further wandering in Italy, 
without visiting the south, though Rome and 
Naples must have held out powerful attractions 
to one of his poetical cast, Once more resuming 
his pilgrim staff, he turned his face toward Eng^ 
land, " walking along from city to city, examin- 
ing mankind more nearly, and seeing both sides 
of the picture." In traversing France his flute 
— his magic flute ! — was once more in requisi- 
tion, as we may conclude by the following pas- 
sage in his " Traveller " : — 

" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir 
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire ! 
"Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ; 
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages : Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze, 
And the gay grandsire, skilTd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk' d beneath the burden of three-score." 

6 



CHAPTER VI. 

Landing in England. — Shifts of a Man without Money. — 
The Pestle and Mortar. — Theatricals in a Barn. — Launch 
upon London. — A City Night-Scene. — Struggles with 
Penury. — Miseries of a Tutor. — A Doctor in the Suburb. 
Poor Practice and second-hand Finery. — A Tragedy in 
Embryo. — Project of the Written Mountains. 

*^%/^£|FTER two years spent in roving about 
#P i\l? tne Continent, " pursuing novelty," as he 
<^B>^§ said, "and losing content," Goldsmith 
landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to 
have had no definite plan of action. The death 
of his uncle Contarine, and the neglect of his rela- 
tives and friends to reply to his letters, seem to 
have produced in him a temporary feeling of 
loneliness and destitution, and his only thought 
was to get to London, and throw himself upon 
the world. But how was he to get there ? His 
purse was empty. England was to him as com- 
pletely a foreign land as any part of the Continent, 
and where on earth is a penniless stranger more 
destitute ? His flute and his philosophy were no 
longer of any avail ; the English boors cared 
nothing for music ; there were no convents ; and 
as to the learned and the clergy, not one of them 
would give a vagrant scholar a supper and night's 
lodajinp; for the best thesis that ever was argued. 
" You may easily imagine," says he, in a subse- 



LAUNCH UPON LONDON. 81 

quent letter to his brother-in-law, "what difficul- 
ties I had to encounter, left as I was without 
friends, recommendations, money, or impudence, 
and that in a country where being born an Irish- 
man was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, 
in such circumstances, would have had recourse 
to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But, 
with all my follies, I had principle to resist the 
one, and resolution to combat the other." 

He applied at one place, we are told, for em- 
ployment in the shop of a country apothecary ; 
but all his medical science gathered in foreign 
universities could not gain him the management 
of a pestle and mortar. He even resorted, it is 
said, to the stage as a temporary expedient, and 
figured in low comedy at a country town in Kent. 
This accords with his last shift of the Philosophic 
Vagabond, and with the knowledge of country 
theatricals displayed in his " Adventures of a 
Strolling Player," or may be a story suggested 
by them. All this part of his career, however, 
in which he must have trod the lowest paths of 
humility, are only to be conjectured from vague 
traditions, or scraps of autobiography gleaned 
from his miscellaneous writings. 

At length we find him launched on the great 
metropolis, or rather drifting about its streets, at 
night, in the gloomy month of February, with 
but a few half-pence in his pocket. The Deserts 
of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable 
than the streets of London at such a time, and 
to a stranger in such a plight. Do we want a 
picture as an illustration ? We have it in his 



82 OLIVER GOLL SMITH. 

own works, and furnished, doubtless, from his 
own experience. 

" The clock has just struck two ; what a gloom 
lianas all around ! no sound is heard but of the 
chiming clock, or the distant watch-dog. How 
few appear in those streets, which but some few 
hours ago were crowded ! But who are those 
who make the streets their couch, and find a short 
repose from wretchedness at the doors of the 
opulent ? They are strangers, wanderers, and 
orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to 
expect redress, and whose distresses are too great 
even for pity. Some are without the covering 
even of rags, and others emaciated with disease ; 
the world has disclaimed them ; society turns its 
back upon their distress, and has given them up 
to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering 
females have once seen happier days, and been flat- 
tered into beauty. They are now turned out to 
meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now, lying 
at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to 
wretches whose hearts are insensible, or de- 
bauchees who may curse, but will not relieve 
them. 

" Why, why was I born a man, and yet see 
the sufferings of wretches I cannot relieve ! Poor 
houseless creatures ! The world will give you 
reproaches, but will not give you relief." 

Poo* houseless Goldsmith ! we may here ejac- 
ulate — to what shifts he must have been driven 
to find shelter and sustenance for himself in 
(his his first venture into London ! Many years 
afterwards, in the days of his social elevation, be 



MISERIES OF A TUTOR. 8S 

startled a polite circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's 
by humorously dating an anecdote about the time 
he " lived among the beggars of Axe Lane." Such 
may have been the desolate quarters with which 
he was fain to content himself when thus adrift 
upon th-3 town, with but a few half-pence in hi? 
pocket. 

The first authentic trace we have of him in this 
new part of his career, is filling the situation of 
an usher to a school, and even this employ he ob- 
tained with some difficulty, after a reference for 
a character to his friends in the University of 
Dublin. In the •' Vicar of Wakefield " he makes 
George Primrose undergo a whimsical catechism 
concerning the requisites for an usher. " Have 
you been bred apprentice to the business ? " " No." 
" Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress 
the boys' hair ?" " No." " Then you won't do for 
a school. Can you lie three in a bed ? " " No." 
" Then you will never do for a school. Have 
you a good stomach ? " " Yes." " Then you will 
by no means do for a school. I have been an 
usher in a boarding-school, myself, and may I die 
of an anodyne necklace, but I had rather be under- 
turnkey in Newgate. I was up early and late : 
I was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly 
face by the mistress, worried by the boys." 

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this 
situation, and to the mortifications experienced 
there we doubtless owe the picturings given, in his 
writings of the hardships of an usher's life. " He 
is generally," says he, " the laughing-stock of the 
school. Every trick is played upon him ; the o<l- 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

dity of his manner, his dress, or his language, is a 
fund of eternal ridicule ; the master himself now 
and then cannot avoid joining in the laugh ; and 
the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill-usage 
lives in a state of war with all the family." .... 
" He is obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same 
bed with the French teacher, who disturbs him 
for an hour every night in papering and filltting 
his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his 
rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside 
him on the bolster." 

His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory 
of a chemist near Fish-Street Hill. After remain- 
ing here a few months, he heard that Dr. Sleigh, 
who had been his friend and fellow-student at 
Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to meet with 
a friendly face in this land of strangers, he im- 
mediately called on him ; " but though it was 
Sunday, and it is to be supposed I was in my best 
clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me — such is the tax 
the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when 
he did recollect me, I found his heart as warm 
as ever, and he shared his purse and friendship 
with me during his continuance in London." 

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, 
he now commenced the practice of medicine, but 
in a small way, in Bankside, Southwark, and 
chiefly among the poor ; for he wanted the figure, 
address, polish, and management, to succeed among 
the rich. His old schoolmate and college compan- 
ion, Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse 
at the university, met him about this time, decked 
out in the tarnished finery of a second-hand suit 



DOCTOR IN THE SUBURB. 85 

of green and gold, with a shirt and neckcloth of a 
fortnight's wear. 

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a pros* 
perous air in the eyes of his early associate. " He 
was practising physic," he said, " and doing very 
well ! " At this moment poverty was pinching 
him to the bone in spite of his practice and his 
dirty finery. His fees were necessarily small and 
ill paid, and he was fain to seek some precarious 
assistance from his pen. Here his quondam fellow- 
student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of service, intro- 
ducing him to some of the booksellers, who gave 
him occasional, though starveling, employment. 
According to tradition, however, his most efficient 
patron just now was a journeyman printer, one 
of his poor patients of Bankside,who had formed 
a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his 
poverty and his literary shifts. The printer was 
in the employ of Mr. Samuel Kichardson, the au- 
thor of " Pamela," " Clarissa," and " Sir Charles 
Grandison " ; who combined the novelist and the 
publisher, and was in flourishing circumstances. 
Through the journeyman's intervention Goldsmith 
is said to have become acquainted with Richardson, 
who employed him as reader and corrector of the 
press, at his printing establishment in Salisbury 
Court, — an occupation which he alternated with 
his medical duties. 

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's 
parlor, he began to form literary acquaintances, 
among whom the most important was Dr. Young, 
the author of " Night Thoughts," a poem in the 
height of fashion. It is not probable, however. 



$6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that much familiarity took place at the time be- 
tween the literary lion of the day and the poor 
-ZEsculapius of Bankside, the humble corrector of 
the press. Still the communion with literary men 
had its effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr, 
Farr, one of his Edinburgh fellow-students, who 
was at London about this time, attending the hos- 
pitals and lectures, gives us an amusing account 
of Goldsmith in his literary character. 

" Early in January he called upon me one morn- 
ing before I was up, and, on my entering the 
room, I recognized my old acquaintance, dressed 
in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets 
full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the 
poet in Garrick's farce of ' Lethe.' After we had 
finished our breakfast, he drew from his pocket 
part of a tragedy, which he said he had brought 
for my correction. In vain I pleaded inability, 
when he began to read ; and every part on which 
I expressed a doubt as to the propriety was 
immediately blotted out. I then most earnestly 
pressed him not to trust to my judgment, but to 
take the opinion of persons better qualified to de- 
cide on dramatic compositions. He now told me 
he had submitted his production, so far as he had 
written, to Mr. Richardson, the author of ' Cla- 
rissa,' on which I peremptorily declined offering 
another criticism on the performance." 

From the graphic description given of him by 
Dr. Farr, it will be perceived that the tarnished 
finery of green and gold had been succeeded by a 
professional suit of black, to which, we are told, 
were added the wig and cane indispensable to med- 



TEE WRITTEN MOUNTAINS. 87 

ical doctors in those days. The coat was a second 
hand one, of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left 
breast, which he adroitly covered with his three* 
cornered hat during his medical visits ; and wq 
have an amusing anecdote of his contest of cour- 
tesy with a patient who persisted in endeavoring 
to relieve him from the hat, which only made him 
press it more devoutly to his heart. 

Nothing further has ever been heard of the 
tragedy mentioned by Dr. Farr ; it was probably 
never completed. The same gentleman speaks 
of a strange Quixotic scheme which Goldsmith 
had in contemplation at the time, " of going to 
decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains, 
though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or 
the language in wliich they might be supposed, 
to be written. " The salary of three hundred 
pounds," adds Dr. Farr, " which had been left 
for the purpose, was the temptation." This was 
probably one of many dreamy projects with which 
his fervid brain was apt to teem. On such subjects 
he was prone to talk vaguely and magnificently, 
but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination 
rather than a well-instructed judgment. He had 
always a great notion of expeditions to the East, 
and wonders to be seen and effected in the (Men* 
tal countries. 




CHAPTER VII. 

jife of a Pedagogue. — Kindness to Schoolboys. — Pertness in 
Return. — Expensive Charities. — The Griffiths and the 
" Monthly Review." — Toils of a Literary Hack. — Rupt- 
ure with the Griffiths. 

^|^|j|MONG the most cordial of Goldsmith's 
^^V 1 ^ intimates in London during this time of 
@^^^ precarious struggle, were certain of his 
former fellow-students in Edinburgh. One of 
these was the son of a Dr. Milner, a dissenting 
minister, who kept a classical school of eminence 
at Peckham, in Surrey. Young Milner had a 
favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and at- 
tainments, and cherished for him that goodwill 
which his genial nature seems ever to have in- 
spired among his school and college associates. 
His father falling ill, the young man negotiated 
with Goldsmith to take temporary charge of the 
school. The latter readily consented ; for he was 
discouraged by the slow growth of medical repu- 
tation and practice, and as yet had no confidence 
in the coy smiles of the Muse. Laying by his wig 
and cane, therefore, and once more wielding the 
ferule, he resumed the character of the pedagogue, 
and for some time reigned as vicegerent over the 
academy at Peckham. He appears to have been 
well treated by both Dr. Milner and his wife ; 
and became a favorite with the scholars from his 



EXPENSIVE CHARITIES. 89 

easy, indulgent good-nature. He mingled in 
their sports ; told them droll stories ; played on 
the flute for their amusement, and spent his 
money in treating them to sweetmeats and other 
schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was some- 
times carried too far ; he indulged in boyish 
pranks and practical jokes, and drew upon himself 
retorts in kind, which, however, he bore with 
great good-humor. Once, indeed, he was touched 
to the quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. 
After playing on the flute, he spoke with enthusi- 
asm of music, as delightful in itself, and as a val- 
uable accomplishment for a gentleman, whereupon 
a youngster, with a glance at his ungainly person, 
wished to know if he considered himself a gentle- 
man. Poor Goldsmith, feelingly alive to the 
awkwardness of his appearance and the humility 
of his situation, winced at this unthinking sneer, 
which long rankled in his mind. 

As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his 
benevolent feelings were a heavy tax upon his 
purse, for he never could resist a tale of distress, 
and was apt to be fleeced by every sturdy beggar ; 
so that, between his charity and his munificence, 
he was generally in advance of his slender sal- 
ary. "You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me 
take care of your money," said Mrs. Milner one 
lay, " as I do for some of the young gentlemen." 
" In truth, madam, there is equal need ! " was the 
good-humored reply. 

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary preten- 
sions, and wrote occasionally for the " Monthly 
Review." of which a bookseller, by the name of 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Griffiths, was proprietor. This work was an ad 
vocate for Whig principles, and had been in pros- 
perous existence for nearly eight years. Of late, 
however, periodicals had multiplied exceedingly, 
and a formidable Tory rival had started up in 
the " Critical Review" published by Archibald 
Hamilton, a bookseller, and aided by the power- 
ful and popular pen of Dr. Smollett. Griffiths 
was obliged to recruit his forces. While so do- 
ing he met Goldsmith, a humble occupant of a 
«eat at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck with 
remarks on men and books, which fell from him 
in the course of conversation. He took occasion 
to sound him privately as to his inclination and 
capacity as a reviewer, and was furnished by him 
with specimens of his literary and critical talents. 
They proved satisfactory. The consequence was 
that Goldsmith once more changed his mode of 
life, and in April, 1757, became a contributor to 
the " Monthly Review," at a small fixed salary, 
with board and lodging ; and accordingly took up 
his abode with Mr. Griffiths, at the sign of the 
Dunciad, Paternoster Row. As usual we trace 
this phase of his fortunes in his semi-fictitious 
writings ; his sudden transmutation of the peda- 
gogue into the author being humorously set forth 
in the case of " George Primrose " in the " Vicar 
of Wakefield." " Come," says George's adviser, 
" I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning ; 
what do think of commencing author like me ? 
You have read in books, no doubt, of men of 
genius starving at the trade : at present I'll sIioav 
you forty very dull fellows about town that live 



LITERARY HACK. 91 

by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men, who 
go on smoothly and dully, and write history 
and politics, and are praised : men, sir, who, had 
they been bred cobblers, would all their lives only 
have mended shoes, but never made them." 
" Finding " (says George) " that there was no 
great degree of gentility affixed to the character 
of an usher, I resolved to accept his proposal ; and, 
having the highest respect for literature, hailed the 
antiqua mater of Grub Street with reverence. I 
thought it my glory to pursue a track which 
Dryden and Otway trod before me." Alas, Dry- 
den struggled with indigence all his days ; and 
Otway, it is said, fell a victim to famine in his 
thirty-fifth year, being strangled by a roll of 
bread, which he devoured with the voracity of a 
starving man. 

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved 
a thorny one. Griffiths was a hard business-man, 
of shrewd, worldly good sense, but little refine- 
ment or cultivation. He meddled or rather 
muddled with literature, too, in a business-way, 
altering and modifying occasionally the writings of 
his contributors, and in this he was aided by his 
wife, who, according to Smollett, was " an anti- 
quated female critic and a dabbler in the ' Re- 
view.' " Such was the literary vassalage to 
which Goldsmith had unwarily subjected himself. 
A diurnal drudgery was imposed on him', irksome 
to his indolent habits, and attended by circum- 
stances humiliating to his pride. He had to write 
daily from nine o'clock until two, and often 
throughout the day ; whether in the vein or not 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and on subjects dictated by his task-master, how- 
ever foreign to his taste ; in a word, he was 
treated as a mere literary hack. But this was 
not the worst ; it was the critical supervision of 
Griffiths and his wife, which grieved him ; the 
"illiterate, bookselling Griffiths," as Smollett 
called them, " who presumed to revise, alter, and 
amend the articles contributed to their ' Review.' 
Thank Heaven," crowed Smollett, " the ' Critical 
Review ' is not written under the restraint of a 
bookseller and his wife. Its principal writers are 
independent of each other, unconnected with 
booksellers, and unawed by old women ! " 

This literary vassalage, however, did not last 
long. The bookseller became more and more ex- 
acting. He accused his hack writer of idleness ; 
of abandoning his writing-desk and literary work- 
shop at an early hour of the day ; and of assum- 
ing a tone and manner above his situation. Gold- 
smith, in return, charged him with impertinence ; 
his wife, with meanness and parsimony in her 
household treatment of him, and both of literary 
meddling and marring. The engagement was 
broken off at the end of five months, by mutual 
consent, and without any violent rupture, as it 
will be found they afterwards had occasional deal- 
ings with each otner. 

Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years 
of age, he had produced nothing to give him a 
decided reputation. He was as yet a mere writer 
for bread. The articles he had contributed to 
the " Review " were anonymous, and were never 
avowed by him. They have since been, for the 



HIS EARLY WRITINGS. 



93 



most part, ascertained ; and though thrown off 
hastily, often treating on subjects of temporary 
interest, and marred by the Griffith interpolations, 
they are still characterized by his sound, easy 
good sense, and the genial graces of his style. 
Johnson observed that Goldsmith's genius flow- 
ered late ; he should have said it flowered early, 
but was late in bringing its fruit to maturity. 



CHAPTER VIH. 

Newbery, of Picture-Book Memory. — How to keep up Ap- 
pearances. — Miseries of Authorship. — A poor Relation. 
Letter to Hodson. 

,EING now known in the publishing 
|ff£ world, Goldsmith began to find casual 
employment in various quarters ; among 
others he wrote occasionally for the " Literary 
Magazine," a production set on foot by Mr. John 
Newbery, bookseller, St. Paul's Churchyard, re- 
nowned in nursery literature throughout the lat- 
ter half of the last century for his picture-books 
for children. Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, 
kind-hearted man, and a seasonable, though cau- 
tious friend to authors, relieving them with small 
loans when in pecuniary difficulties, though always 
taking care to be well repaid by the labor of their 
pens. Goldsmith introduces him in a humorous 
yet friendly manner in his novel of the " Vicar of 
Wakefield." " This person was no other than the 
philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
who has written so many little books for children ; 
he called himself their friend ; but he was the 
friend of all mankind. He was no sooner alighted 
but he was in haste to be gone ; for he was ever 
on business of importance, and was at that time 
actually compiling materials for the history of 



KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 95 

one Mr. Thomas Trip. I immediately recollected 
this good-natured man's red-pimpled face." 

Besides his literary job-work, Goldsmith also 
resumed his medical practice, but with very tri- 
fling success. The scantiness of his purse still 
obliged him to live in obscure lodgings somewhere 
in the vicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet Street ; 
but his extended acquaintance and rising impor- 
tance caused him to consult appearances. He 
adopted an expedient, then very common, and 
still practised in London among those who have 
to tread the narrow path between pride and pov- 
erty : while he burrowed in lodgings suited to his 
means, he " hailed," as it is termed, from the 
Temple Exchange Coffee-House near Temple 
Bar. Here he received his medical calls ; hence 
he dated his letters ; and here he passed much of 
his leisure hours, conversing w r ith the frequenters 
of the place. " Thirty pounds a year," said ;t 
poor Irish painter, who understood the art of 
shifting, "is enough to enable a man to live in 
London without being contemptible. Ten pounds 
will find him in clothes and linen ; he can live in 
a garret on eighteen pence a week ; hail from a 
cotfee - house, where, by occasionally spending 
threepence, he may pass some hours each clay in 
good company ; he may breakfast on bread and 
milk for a penny ; dine for sixpence ; do without 
supper ; and on clean-shirt-day he may go abroad 
and pay visits." 

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from 
this poor devil's manual in respect to the coffee- 
house at least. Indeed, cotfee - houses in those 



96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

days were the resorts of wits and literati ; where 
the topics of the day were gossiped over, and thfe 
affairs of literature and the drama discussed and 
criticised. In this way he enlarged the circle of 
his intimacy, which now embraced several names 
of notoriety. 

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experi- 
ence in this part of his career ? we have it in 
his observations on the life of an author in the 
" Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning" pub- 
lished some years afterwards. 

" The author, unpatronized by the great, has 
naturally recourse to the bookseller. There can- 
not, perhaps, be imagined a combination more 
prejudicial to taste than this. It is the interest 
of the one to allow as little for writing, and for 
the other to write as much as possible ; accordingly, 
tedious compilations and periodical magazines are 
the result of their joint endeavors. In these cir- 
cumstances the author bids adieu to fame ; writes 
for bread ; and for that only imagination is seldom 
called in. He sits down to address the venal 
Muse with the most phlegmatic apathy ; and, as 
we are told of the Russian, courts his mistress by 
falling asleep in her lap." 

Again. " Those who are unacquainted with the 
world are apt to fancy the man of wit as leading 
a very agreeable life. They conclude, perhaps, 
that he is attended with silent admiration, and dic- 
tates to the rest of mankind with all the eloquence 
of conscious superiority. Very different is his 
present situation. He is called an author, and 
all know that an author is a thing only to be 



MISERIES OF AUTHORSHIP. 97 

laughed at. His person, not his jest, becomes 
the mirth of the company. At his approach the 
most fat, unthinking face brightens into malicious 
meaning. Even aldermen laugh, and avenge on 
him the ridicule which was lavished on their fore- 
fathers The poet's poverty is a standing 

topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an 
unpardonable offence. Perhaps of all mankind, 
an author in these times is used most hardly. 
We keep him poor, and yet revile his poverty 
We reproach him for living by his wit, and yet 
allow him no other means to live. His takinsr 
refuge in garrets and cellars has of late been 
violently objected to him, and that by men who, I 
have hope, are more apt to pity than insult his 
distress. Is poverty a careless fault ? No doubt 
he knows how to prefer a bottle of champagne to 
the nectar of the neighboring ale-house, or a ven- 
ison pasty to a plate of potatoes. Want of deli- 
cacy is not in him, but in those who deny him the 
opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit 
certainly is the property of those who have it, 
nor should we be displeased if it is the only prop- 
erty a man sometimes has. We must not under 
rate him who uses it for subsistence, and flees 
from the ingratitude of the age, even to a book- 
seller for redress." .... 

" If the author be necessary among us, let us 
treat him with proper consideration as a child of 
the public, not as a rent-charge on the community. 
And hi deed a child of the public he is in all re- 
spects ; for while so well able to direct others, 
how incapable is he frequently found of guiding 



98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

himself. His simplicity exposes him to all the 
insidious approaches of cunning : his sensibility, 
to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though 
possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the ex- 
pected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so 
exquisitely poignant, as to agonize under the 
slightest disappointment. Broken rest, tasteless 
meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life and 
render it unfit for active employments ; prolonged 
vigils and intense applications still farther con- 
tract his span, and make his time glide insensibly 
away." 

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling 
with the difficulties and discouragements which in 
those days beset the path of an author, his friends 
in Ireland received accounts of his literary success 
and of the distinguished acquaintances he was 
making. This was enough to put the wise heads 
at Lissoy and Ballymahon in a ferment of conjec- 
tures. With the exaggerated notions of provin- 
cial relatives concerning the family great man in 
the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred 
pictured him to themselves seated in high places, 
clothed in purple and fine linen, and hand and 
glove with the givers of gifts and dispensers of 
patronage. Accordingly, he was one day sur- 
prised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable 
lodging, of his younger brother Charles, a raw 
youth of twenty-one, endowed with a double share 
of the family heedlessness, and who expected to 
be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to 
fortune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. 
Charles was sadly diconcerted on learning that, 



LETTER TO HODS ON. 99 

so far from being able to provide for others, his 
brother could scarcely take care of himself. He 
looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quar- 
ters, and could not help expressing his surprise 
and disappointment at finding him no better off, 
" All in good time, my dear boy," replied pool 
Goldsmith, with infinite good-humor ; " I shall bf 
richer by-and-by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote 
his poem of the ' Campaign ' in a garret in the 
Haymarket, three stories high, and you see I am 
not come to that yet, for I have only got to the 
second story." 

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to em- 
barrass his brother in London. With the same 
roving disposition and inconsiderate temper of 
Oliver, he suddenly departed in an humble capac- 
ity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and 
nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, 
when, after having been given up as dead by his 
friends, he made his reappearance in England. 

Shortly after his departure, Goldsmith wrote a 
letter to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., 
of which the following is an extract ; it was partly 
intended, no doubt, to dissipate any further illu- 
sions concerning his fortunes which might float on 
the magnificent imagination of his friends in Bal- 
lymahon. 

" I suppose you desire to know my present sit- 
uation. As there is nothing in it at which I 
should blush or which mankind could censure, I 
see no reason for making it a secret. In short, 
by a very little practice as a physician, and a 
~*evy little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to 



100 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the 
gates of the Muses than poverty ; but it were well 
if they only left us at the door. The mischief is, 
they sometimes choose to give us their company 
to the entertainment ; and want, instead of being 
gentleman-usher, often turns master of the cere- 
monies. . * 

" Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you 
imagine I starve ; and the name of an author natu- 
rally reminds you of a garret. In this particu- 
lar I do not think proper to undeceive my friends. 
But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor 
or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them 
with ardor ; nay, my very country comes in for 
a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness 
for country, this maladie du pais, as the French 
call it ! Unaccountable that he should still have 
an affection for a place, who never, when in it,, 
received above common civility ; who never 
brought anything out of it except his brogue and 
his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridic- 
ulous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be 
cured of the itch because it made him unco' 
thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary. 

" But, now, to be serious : let me ask myself 
what gives me a wish to see Ireland again. The 
country is a fine one, perhaps ? No. There are 
good company in Ireland ? No. The conversa- 
tion there is generally made up of a smutty toast 
or a bawdy song ; the vivacity supported by some 
humble cousin, who had just folly enough to earn 
his dinner. Then, perhaps, there 's more wit and 
learning among the Irish ? Oh, Lord, no ! There 



RECOLLECTIONS OF HOME. 101 

has been more money spent in the encouragement 
of the Paclareen mare there one season, than 
given in rewards to learned men since the time 
of Usher. All their productions in learning 
amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts 
in divinity ; and all their productions in wit to 
just nothing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond 
of Ireland ? Then, all at once, because you, my 
dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions 
to the general picture, have a residence there. 
This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in 
separation. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes 
to the souring the pleasures I at present possess. 
If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba 
pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and 
sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's 
' Last Good-night ' from Peggy Golden. If I 
climb Hampstead Hill, than where nature never 
exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess 
it fine ; but then I had rather be placed on the 
little mount before Lissoy gate, and there take in, 
to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. 

" Before Charles came hither, my thoughts 
sometimes found refuge from severer studies 
among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange 
revolutions at home ; but I find it was the rapid- 
ity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one 
to objects really at rest. No alterations there. 
Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very 
rich ; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, 
all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out 
in visits among the neighbors, and sometimes 
make a migration from the blue bed to the brown 



102 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

I could from my heart wish that you and she 
(Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy and Ballymahon, and 
all of you, would fairly make a migration into 
Middlesex ; though, upon second thoughts, this 
might be attended with a few inconveniences. 
Therefore, as the mountain will not come to 
Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to the 
mountain ; or, to speak plain English, as you can- 
not conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer 
I can contrive to be absent six weeks from Lon- 
don, I shall spend three of them among my friends 
in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design is 
purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor 
levy contributions ; neither to excite envy nor 
solicit favor ; in fact, my circumstances are 
adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, 
and too rich to need assistance." 





CHAPTER IX. 

Hackney Authorship. — Thoughts of Literary Suicide. •- 
Return to Peckham. — Oriental Projects. — Literary Enter- 
prise to raise Funds. — Letter to Edward Wells; to Rob- 
ert Bryanton. — Death of Uncle Contarine. — Letter to 
Cousin Jane! 

OK, some time Goldsmith continued to 
write miscellaneously for reviews and 
other periodical publications, but without 
making any decided hit, to use a technical term. 
Indeed as yet he appeared destitute of the strong 
excitement of literary ambition, and wrote only 
on the spur of necessity and at the urgent impor- 
tunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant 
disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting 
in holiday, had to be scourged up to its task ; still 
it was this very truant disposition which threw 
an unconscious charm over everything he wrote ; 
bringing with it honeyed thoughts and pictured 
images which had sprung up in his mind in the 
sunny hours of idleness : these effusions, dashed 
off on compulsion in the exigency of the moment, 
were published anonymously ; so that they made 
no collective impression on the public, and reflected 
uo fame on the name of their author. 

In an essay published some time subsequently 
in the " Bee," Goldsmith adverts in his own 
humorous way to his impatience at the tardiness 
with which his desultory and unacknowledged 



104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

assays crept into notice. " I was once induced," 
says he, " to show my indignation against the 
public by discontinuing my efforts to please ; 
and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex 
them by burning my manuscripts in a passion. 
Upon reflection, however, I considered what set 
or body of people would be displeased at my 
rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident, 
might shine next morning as bright as usual ; 
men might laugh and sing the next day, and 
transact business as before ; and not a single 
creature feel any regret but myself. Instead of 
having Apollo in mourning or the Muses in a fit 
of the spleen ; instead of having the learned 
world apostrophizing at my untimely decease ; 
perhaps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, 
and self-approving dignity be unable to shield me 
from ridicule." 

Circumstances occurred about this time to sjive 
a new direction to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. 
Having resumed for a brief period the super- 
intendence of the Peckham school, during a fit of 
illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in requital 
for his timely services, promised to use his in- 
fluence with a friend, an East-India director, to 
procure him a medical appointment in India. 

There was every reason to believe that the 
influence of Dr. Milner would be effectual ; but 
how was Goldsmith to find the ways and means 
of fitting himself out for a voyage to the Indies ? 
In this emergency he was driven to a more ex- 
tended exercisr. of the pen than he had yet at- 
tempted. His skirmishing among books as a 



LETTER TO WELLS. 105 

reviewer, and his disputatious ramble among the 
schools and universities and literati of the Conti- 
nent, had filled his mind with facts and observa- 
tions which he now set about digesting into a 
treatise of some magnitude, to be entitled " An 
Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning 
in Europe." As the work grew on his hands, his 
sanguine temper ran ahead of his labors. Feel- 
ing secure of success in England, he was anxious 
to forestall the piracy of the Irish press ; for as 
yet, the union not having taken place, the Eng- 
lish law of copyright did not extend to the other 
side of the Irish channel. He wrote, therefore, 
to his friends in Ireland, urging them to circulate 
his proposals for his contemplated work, and ob- 
tain subscriptions payable in advance ; the money ; 
to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent 
bookseller in Dublin, who would give a receipt 
for it and be accountable for the delivery of the 
books. The letters written by him on this oc- 
casion are worthy of copious citation as being full 
of character and interest. One was to his rela- 
tive and college intimate, Edward Wells, who 
had studied for the bar, but was now living at 
ease on his estate at Roscommon. " You have 
quitted," writes Goldsmith, " the plan of life 
which you once intended to pursue, and given up 
ambition for domestic tranquillity. I cannot avoid 
feeling some regret that one of my few friends 
has declined a pursuit in which he had every 
reason to expect success. I have often let my 
fancy loose when you were the subject, and have , 
imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at 



10G OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the bar : while I have taken no small pride to 
myself, and whispered to all that I could come 
near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, 
it seems, you are merely contented to be a happy 
man ; to be esteemed by your acquaintances ; to 
cultivate your paternal acres; to take unmolested 
a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or in 
Mrs. Wells's bedchamber, which, even a poet must 
confess, is rather the more comfortable place of 
the two. But, however your resolutions may be 
altered with regard to your situation in life, I 
persuade myself they are unalterable with respect 
to your friends in it. I cannot think the world 
has taken such entire possession of that heart 
(once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have 
left a corner there for a friend or two, but I flat- 
ter myself that even I have a place among the 
number. This I have a claim to from the simil- 
itude of our dispositions ; or setting that aside, 
I can demand it as a right by the most equitable 
law of nature : I mean that of retaliation ; for 
indeed you have more than your share in mine. 
I am a man of few professions ; and yet at this 
very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehen- 
sion that my present professions (which speak 
not half my feelings) should be considered only 
as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a re- 
quest to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you 
are too generous to think so, and you know me 
too proud to stoop to unnecessary insincerity ; — 
I have a request, it is true, to make ; but as I 
know to whom T am a petitioner, I make it with- 
out diffidence or confusion. It is in short this' 



LETTER TO BRYANTON. 107 

1 am going to publish a book in London," &c 
The residue of the letter specifies the nature of 
the request, which was merely to aid in circulat- 
ing his proposals and obtaining subscriptions. 
The letter of the poor author, however, was un- 
attended to and unacknowledged by the pros- 
perous Mr. Wells, of Roscommon, though in after- 
years he was proud to claim relationship to Dr. 
Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity. 

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert 
Bryanton, with whom he had long ceased to be 
in correspondence. " I believe," writes he, " that 
they who are drunk, or out of their wits, fancy 
everybody else in the same condition. Mine is 
a friendship that neither distance nor time can 
eiface, which is probably the reason that, for the 
soul of me, I can't avoid thinking yours of the 
same complexion ; and yet I 'have many reasons 
for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so 
long an absence, was I never made a partner in 
your concerns ? To hear of your success would 
have given me the utmost pleasure ; and a com- 
munication of your very disappointments would 
divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my 
own. Indeed, my dear Bob, you don't conceive 
how unkindly you have treated one whose cir- 
cumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, 
except those reflected from the happiness of his 
friends. However, since you have not let me 
hear from you, I have in some measure disap- 
pointed your neglect by frequently thinking of you. 
Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes 
of your life, from the fireside to the easy-chair ; 



103 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

recall the various adventures that first cemented 
our friendship ; the school, the college, or the tav- 
ern ; preside in fancy over your cards ; and am 
displeased at your bad play when the rubber goes 
against you, though not with all that agony of 
soul as when I was once your partner. Is it not 
strange that two of such like affections should be 
so much separated, and so differently employed as 
w r e are ? You seem placed at the centre of for- 
tune's wheel, and, let it revolve ever so fast, are 
insensible of the motion. I seem to have been 
tied to the circumference, and whirled disagreeably 
round, as if on a whirligig." 

He then runs into a whimsical and extrava- 
gant tirade about his future prospects. The won- 
derful career of fame and fortune that awaits him, 
and after indulging in all kinds of humorous gas- 
conades, concludes : " Let me, then, stop my fancy 
to take a view of my future self, — and, as the 
boys say, light down to see myself on horseback. 
Well, now that I am down, where the d — 1 is 1% 
Oh gods ! gods ! here in a garret, writing for bread, 
and expecting to be dunned for a milk score ! " 

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless writ- 
ten to his uncle Contarine, but that generous 
friend was sunk into a helpless hopeless state 
from which death soon released him. 

Cut off thus from the kind cooperation of his 
uncle, he addresses a letter to his daughter Jane 
the companion of his school-boy and happy days, 
now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The object was to 
secure her interest with her husband in promot- 
ing the circulation of his proposals. The letter 
is full of character. 



LETTER TO COUSIN JANE. 109 

" If you should ask," he begins, " why, in an 
interval of so many years, you never heard from 
me, permit me, madam, to ask the same question. 
I have the best excuse in recrimination. I wrote 
to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Lou- 
vain in Flanders, and Rouen in France, but re- 
ceived no answer. To what could I attribute 
this silence but to displeasure or forgetfulness ? 
Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not 
pretend to determine ; but this I must ingenu- 
ously own, that I have a thousand times in my 
turn endeavored to forget them, whom I could 
not but look upon as forgetting me. I v have at- 
tempted to blot their names from my memory, 
and, I confess it, spent whole days in efforts to 
tear their image from my heart. Could I have 
succeeded, you had not now been troubled with 
this renewal of a discontinued correspondence ; 
but, as every effort the restless make to procure 
sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my at- 
tempts contributed to impress what I would for- 
get deeper on my imagination. But this subject 
I would willingly turn from, and yet, * for the 
soul of me,' I can't till I have said all. I was, 
madam, when I discontinued writing to Kilmore, 
in such circumstances, that all my endeavors to 
continue your regards might be attributed to 
wrong motives. My letters might be looked 
upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the 
offerings of a friend ; . while all my professions, 
mstead of being considered of the result of disin- 
terested esteem, might be ascribed to venal in- 
sincerity. I believe, indeed, you had too much 



110 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

generosity to place them in such a light, but I could 
not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. 
The most delicate friendships are always most 
sensible of the slightest invasion, and the strong- 
est jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest re- 
gard. I could not — I own I could not — continue 
a correspondence in which every acknowledgment 
for past favors might be considered as an indirect 
request for future ones ; and where it might be 
thought I gave my heart from a motive of grati- 
tude alone, when I was conscious of having be- 
stowed it on much more disinterested principles. 
It is true, this conduct might have been simple 
enough ; but yourself must confess it was in char- 
acter. Those who know me at all, know that I 
have always been actuated by different principles 
from the rest of mankind : and while none re- 
garded the interest of his friend more, no man 
on earth regarded his own less. I have often 
affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flat- 
tery; have frequently seemed to overlook those 
merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended 
disregard to those instances of good nature and 
good sense, which I could not fail tacitly to ap- 
plaud ; and all this lest I should be ranked among 
the grinning tribe, who say ' very true ' to all that 
is said ; who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table ; 
whose narrow souls never moved in a wider cir- 
cle than the circumference of a guinea ; and who 
had rather be reckoning the money in your 
pocket than the virtue in your breast. All this, 
I say, I have done, and a thousand other very 
silly, though very disinterested, things in my 



LETTER TO COUSIN JANE. Ill 

time ; and for all which no soul cares a farthing 

about me Is it to be wondered that he 

should once in his life forget you, who has been 
all his life forgetting himself? However, it is 
probable you may one of these days see me turned 
into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as 
a mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady 
orders for an entire reform in the state of my 
finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less 
sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brick- 
bats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, 
I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. 
Those will make pretty furniture enough, and 
won't be a bit too expensive ; for I will draw 
them all out with my own hands, and my land- 
lady's daughter shall frame them with the parings 
of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be 
inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, and .wrote 
with my best pen ; of which the following will 
serve as a specimen. Look sharp : Mind the 
main chance : Money is money now : If you have 
a thousand pounds you can put your hands by 
your sides, and say you are worth a thousand 
pounds every day of the year : Take a farthing 
from a hundred and it will be a hundred no longer. 
Thus, which way soever I turn my eyes, they 
are sure to meet one of those friendly monitors ; 
and as we are* told of an actor who hung his 
room round with looking-glass to correct the de- 
fects of his person, my apartment shall be fur- 
nished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors 
of my mind. Faith ! madam, I heartily wish to 
be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say 
8 



112 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

without a blush how much I esteem you. But, 
alas ! I have many a fatigue to encounter before 
that happy time comes, when your poor old sim- 
ple friend may again give a loose to the luxuri- 
ance of his nature ; sitting by Kilmore fireside, 
recount the various adventures of a hard-fought 
life ; laugh over the follies of the day ; join his 
flute to your harpsichord ; and forget that ever 
he starved in those streets where Butler and Ot- 
way starved before him. And now I mention 
those great names — my Uncle ! he is no more 
that soul of fire as when I once knew him. New- 
ton and Swift grew dim with age as well as he. 
But what shall I say ? His mind was too active 
an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion 
of its abode ; for the richest jewels soonest wear 
their settings. Yet, who but the fool would la- 
ment his condition ! He now forgets the calami- 
ties of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has given 
him a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which ho 
so well deserves hereafter. But I must come to 
business ; for business, as one of my maxims tells 
me, must be minded or lost, I am agoing to 
publish in London a book entitled "The Present 
State of Taste and Literature in Europe." The 
booksellers in Ireland republish every perform- 
ance there without making the author any con- 
sideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint 
their avarice, and have all the profits of my la- 
bor to myself. I must, therefore, request Mr 
Lawder to circulate among his friends and ac- 
quaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I 
have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Dame 



LETTER TO COUSIN JANE. 113 

Street, directions to send to him. If, in pursu- 
ance of such circulation, he should receive any 
subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they may 
be sent to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid, who will 
give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, 
or a return of the subscription. If this request 
(which, if it be complied with, will in some meas- 
ure be an encouragement to a man of learning) 
should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would 
not press it ; for I would be the last man on earth 
to have my labors go a-begging ; but if I know 
Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought to know him), he 
will accept the employment with pleasure. All 
I can say — if he writes a book, I will get him two 
hundred subscribers, and those of the best wits 
in Europe. Whether this request is complied 
with or not, I shall not be uneasy ; but there is 
one petition I must make to him and to you, which 
I solicit with the warmest ardor, and in which 
I cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear madam, 
that I may be alloAved to subscribe myself, your 
ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, Oliver 
Goldsmith. Now see how I blot and blunder, 
when I am asking a favor." 



MM 




CHAPTER X. 

Oriental Appointment; and Disappointment. — Examination 
at the College of Surgeons. — How to procure a Suit of 
Clothes. — Fresh Disappointment. — A Tale of Distress. 
The Suit of Clothes in Pawn. — Punishment for doing 
an Act of Charity. — Gayeties of Green Arbor Court. — 
Letter to his Brother. — Life of Voltaire. — Scroggins, an 
Attempt at mock-heroic Poetry. 

>HILE Goldsmith was yet laboring at his 
treatise, the promise made him by Dr. 
ymM^i Milner was carried into effect, and he was 
actually appointed physician and surgeon to one 
of the factories on the coast of Coromandel. His 

m 

imagination was immediately on fire with visions 
of Oriental wealth and magnificence. It is true 
the salary did not exceed one hundred pounds, but 
then, as appointed physician, he would have the 
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one 
thousand pounds per annum ; with advantages to 
be derived from trade and from the high interest 
of money — twenty per cent. ; in a word, for once 
in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and 
straight before him. 

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, 
he had said nothing of his India scheme ; but now 
he imparted to them his brilliant prospects, urg- 
ing the importance of their circulating his propo- 
sals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances 
on his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his 
Butfit. 



ORIENTAL APPOINTMENT. 115 

In the mean time he had to task that poor 
drudge, his Muse, for present exigencies. Ten 
pounds were demanded for his appointment-war- 
rant. Other expenses pressed hard upon him, 
Fortunately, though 'as yet unknown to fame, his 
literary capability was known to " the trade," and 
the coinage of his brain passed current in Grub 
Street. Archibald Hamilton, proprietor of the 
" Critical Review," the rival to that of Griffiths, 
readily made him a small advance on receiving 
three articles for his periodical. His purse thus 
slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his war- 
rant ; wiped oif the score of his milkmaid ; aban- 
doned his garret, and moved into a shabby first 
floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey ; there 
to await the time of his migration to the magnifi- 
cent coast of Coromandel. 

Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! ever doomed to dis- 
appointment. Early in the gloomy month of 
November, that month of fog and despondency in 
London, he learnt the shipwreck of his hope. 
The great Coromandel enterprise fell through ; 
or rather the post promised to him was transfer- 
red to some other candidate. The cause of tins 
disappointment it is now impossible to ascertain. 
The death of his quasi patron, Dr. Milner, which 
happened about this time, may have had some ef- 
fect in producing it; or there may have been 
some heedlessness and blundering on his own 
part ; or some obstacle arising from his insupera- 
ble indigence ; — whatever may have been the 
■jause, he never mentioned it, which gives some 
ground to surmise that he himself was to blame. 



116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

His friends learnt with surprise that he had 
Buddenly relinquished his appointment to India, 
about which he had raised such sanguine expecta- 
tions : some accused him of fickleness and caprice ; 
others supposed him unwilling to tear himself 
Crom the growing fascinations of the literary so- 
ciety of London. 

In the mean time, cut down in his hopes, and 
humiliated in his pride by the failure of his Coro- 
mandel scheme, he sought, without consulting his 
friends, to be examined at the College of Physi- 
cians for the humble situation of hospital mate. 
Even here poverty stood in his way. It wns 
necessary to appear in a decent garb before the 
examining committee ; but how was he to do 
so ? He was literally out at elbows as well as 
out of cash. Here again the Muse, so often jilt- 
ed and neglected by him, came to his aid. In 
consideration of four articles furnished to the 
" Monthly Review," Griffiths, his old task-master, 
was to become his security to the tailor for a suit 
of clothes. Goldsmith said he wanted them but 
for a single occasion, upon which depended his 
appointment to a situation in the army ; as soon 
as that temporary purpose was served they would 
either be returned or paid for. The books to be 
reviewed were accordingly lent to him ; the Muse 
was again set to her compulsory drudgery ; the 
articles were scribbled off and sent to &e book- 
seller, and the clothes came in due time from the 
tailor. 

From the records of the College of Surgeons, 
it appears that Goldsmith underwent his exami- 



FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT. 117 

nation at Surgeons' Hall, on the 21st of December, 
1758. Either from a confusion of mind incident 
to sensitive and imaginative persons on such occa- 
sions, or from a real want of surgical science, which 
last is extremely probable, he failed in his exami- 
nation, and was rejected as unqualified. The ef- 
fect of such a rejection was to disqualify him for 
every branch of public service, though he might 
have claimed a reexamination, after the interval 
of a few months devoted to further study. Such a 
reexamination he never attempted, nor did he 
ever communicate his discomfiture to any of his 
friends. 

On Christmas-Day, but four days after his re- 
jection by the College of Surgeons, while he was 
suffering under the mortification of defeat and 
disappointment, and hard pressed for means of 
subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into 
his room of the poor woman of whom he hired 
his wretched apartment, and to whom he owed 
some small arrears of rent. She had a piteous 
tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflic- 
tions. Her husband had been arrested in the 
night for debt, and thrown into prison. This was 
too much for the quick feelings of Goldsmith ; he 
was ready at any time to help the distressed, but 
in this instance he was himself in some measure 
a cause of the distress. What was to be done ? 
He had no money, it is true ; but there hung the 
new suit of clothes in which he had stood his un- 
lucky examination at Surgeons' Hall. Without 
giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off to 
the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a sufficient 



118 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sum to pay off his own debt, and to release hia 
landlord from prison. 

Under the same pressure of penury and de- 
spondency, he borrowed from a neighbor a pittance 
to relieve his immediate wants, leaving as a secu- 
rity the books which he had recently reviewed. 
In the midst of these straits and harassments, he 
received a letter from Griffiths, demanding, in 
peremptory terms, the return of the clothes and 
books, or immediate payment for the same. It 
appears that he had discovered the identical suit 
at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is 
not known ; it was out of his power to furnish 
either the clothes or the money ; but he probably 
offered once more to make the Muse stand his bail. 
His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy 
man of trade, and drew from him another letter 
still more harsh than the first ; using the epithets 
of knave and sharper, and containing threats of 
prosecution and a prison. 

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives 
the most touching picture of an inconsiderate but 
sensitive man, harassed by care, stung by hu- 
miliations, and driven almost to despondency. 

" Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to 
which my own imprudences and your letter seem 
to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or 
four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as a fa- 
vor — as a favor that may prevent something 
more fatal. I have been some years struggling 
with a wretched being — with all that contempt 
that indigence brings with it — with all those pas- 



PUNISHMENT FOR AN ACT OF CHARITY. 1 19 

sions which make contempt insupportable. What, 
then, has a jail that is formidable ? I shall at 
least have the society of wretches, and such is to 
me true society. I tell you, again and again, that 
I am neither able nor willing to pay you a far- 
thing, but I will be punctual to any appointment 
you or the tailor shall make ; thus far, at least, I 
do not act the sharper, since, unable to pay my 
own debts one way, I would generally give some 
security another. No, sir ; had I been a sharper 
— had I been possessed of less good-nature and 
native generosity, I might surely now have been 
in better circumstances. 

" I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which pov- 
erty unavoidably brings with it : my reflections are 
filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not 
with any remorse for being a villain : that may be 
a character you unjustly charge me with. Your 
books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor 
sold, but in the custody of a friend, from whom 
my necessities obliged me to borrow some money : 
whatever becomes of my person, you sllall have 
them in a month. It is very possible both the re- 
ports you have heard and your own suggestions 
may have brought you false information with re- 
spect to my character ; it is very possible that the 
man whom you now regard with detestation may 
inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It is 
very possible that, upon a second perusal of the 
letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a 
mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jeal- 
ousy. If such circumstances should appear, at 
least spare invective till my book with Mr. Dods 



120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ley shall be published, and then, perhaps, you may 
Bee the bright side of a mind, when my profes- 
sions shall not appear the dictates of necessity, 
but of choice. 

" You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. 
Perhaps so ; but he was a man I shall ever 
honor ; but I have friendships only with the 
dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ; 
nor shall I add to it by any other professions than 
that I am, sir, your humble servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

" P. S. — I shall expect impatiently the result 
of your resolutions." 

The dispute between the poet and the publisher 
was afterward imperfectly adjusted, and it would 
appear that the clothes were paid for by a short 
compilation advertised by Griffiths in the course 
of the following month ; but the parties were 
never really friends afterward, and the writings 
of Goldsmith were harshly and unjustly treated 
in the ki Monthly Review." 

We have given the preceding anecdote in de- 
tail, as furnishing one of the many instances in 
which Goldsmith's prompt and benevolent im- 
pulses outran all prudent forecast, and involved 
him in difficulties and disgraces which a more 
selfish man would have avoided. The pawning 
of the clothes, charged upon him as a crime by 
the grinding bookseller, and apparently admitted 
by him as one of " the meannesses which poverty 
unavoidably brings with it," resulted, as we have 
Bhown, from a tenderness of heart and generosity 



GREEN ARBOR COURT. 121 

of hand, in which another man would have glo- 
ried ; but these were such natural elements with 
him, that he was unconscious of their merit. It 
is a pity that wealth does not oftener bring such 
" meannesses " in its train. 

And now let us be indulged in a few particu- 
lars about these lodgings in which Goldsmith was 
guilty of this thoughtless act of benevolence. 
They were in a very shabby house, No. 12 Green 
Arbor Court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet 
Market. An old woman was still living in 1820 
who was a relative of the identical landlady whom 
Goldsmith relieved by the money received from 
the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven 
years of age at the time that the poet rented his 
apartment of her relative, and used frequently to 
be at the house in Green Arbor Court. She 
was drawn there, in a great measure, by the good- 
humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always 
exceedingly fond of the society of children. He 
used to assemble those of the family in his room, 
give them cakes and sweetmeats, and set them 
dancing to the sound of his flute. He was very 
friendly to those around him, and cultivated a 
kind of intimacy with a watchmaker in the Court, 
who possessed much native wit and humor. He 
passed most of the day, however, in his room, and 
only went out in the evenings. His days were 
no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and 
it would appear that he occasionally found the 
booksellers urgent task-masters. On one occasion 
p, visitor was shown up to his room, and immedi- 
ately their voices were heard in high altercation, 



122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and the key was turned within the lock. The 
landlady, at "first, was disposed to go to the assist- 
ance of her lodger ; but a calm succeeding, she 
forbore to interfere. 

Late in the evening the door was unlocked ; a 
supper ordered by the visitor from a neighboring 
tavern, and Goldsmith and his intrusive guest fin- 
ished the evening in great good-humor. It was 
probably his old task-master Griffiths, whose press 
might have been waiting, and who found no other 
mode of getting a stipulated task from Goldsmith 
than by locking him in, and staying by him until 
it was finished. 

But we have a more particular account of 
these lodgings in Green Arbor Court from the 
Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward Bishop of Dro- 
more, and celebrated for his relics of ancient poe- 
try, his beautiful ballads, and other works. Dur- 
ing an occasional visit to London, he was intro- 
duced to Goldsmith by Grainger, and ever after 
continued one of his most steadfast and valued 
friends. The following is his description of the 
poet's squalid apartment : " I called on Goldsmith 
at his lodgings in March, 1759, and found him 
writing his ' Inquiry,' in a miserable, dirty-look- 
ing room, in which there was but one chair ; and 
when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he him- 
self was obliged to sit in the window. While we 
were conversing together, some one tapped gently 
at the door, and, being desired to come in, a poor, 
ragged little girl, of a very becoming demeanor, 
entered the room, and, dropping a courtesy, said, 
' My mamma sends her compliments, and begs 



GREEN ARBOR COURT. 123 

the favor of you to lend her a chamber-pot full 
of coals.' " 

We are reminded in this anecdote of Gold- 
smith's picture of the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, 
and of the peep into the secrets of a make-shift 
establishment given to a visitor by the blundering 
old Scotch woman. 

" By this time we were arrived as high as the 
stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came 
to what he was facetiously pleased to call the 
first floor down the chimney ; and, knocking at 
the door, a voice from within demanded ' Who 's 
there ? ' My conductor answered that it was him. 
But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again 
repeated the demand, to which he answered louder 
than before ; and now the door was opened by an 
old woman with cautious reluctance. 

"When we got in, he welcomed me to his 
house with great ceremony ; and, turning to the 
old woman, asked where was her lady. < Good 
troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect, ' she 's 
washing your twa shirts at the next door, because 
they have taken an oath against lending the tub 
any longer.' ' My two shirts,' cried he, in a tone 
that faltered with confusion ; ; what does the idiot 
mean ? ' 'I ken what I mean weel enough,' re- 
plied the other ; ' she 's washing your twa shirts 
at the next door, because ' — ' Fire and fury ! 
no more of thy stupid explanations,' cried he ; ' go 
and inform her we have company. Were that 
Scotch hag to be forever in my family, she would 
never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poi- 
sonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest spe- 



124 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

limen of breeding or high life ; and yet it is very 
surprising too, as I had her from a Parliament 
man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one 
of the politest -men in the world ; but that 's a 
secret.' " * 

Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a 
place consecrated by the genius and the poverty 
of Goldsmith, but recently obliterated in the course 
of modern improvements. The writer of this 
memoir visited it not many years since on a liter- 
ary pilgrimage, and may be excused for repeating 
a description of it which he has heretofore in- 
serted in another publication. " It then existed in 
its pristine state, and was a small square of tall 
and miserable houses, the very intestines of which 
seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old 
garments and frippery that fluttered from every 
window. It appeared to be. a region of washer- 
women, and lines were stretched about the little 
square, on which clothes were dangling to dry. 

" Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took 
place between two viragoes about a disputed right 
to a wash-tub, and immediately the whole commu- 
nity was in a hubbub. Heads in mob-caps popped 
out of every window, and such a clamor of tongues 
ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every 
amazon took part with one or other of the dis- 
putants, and brandished her arms, dripping with 
soapsuds, and fired away from her window as from 
the embrasure of a fortress ; while the screams of 
children nestled and cradled in every procreant 
ahamber of this hive, waking with the noise, set 

* Citizen of the World, letter iv. 






LETTER TO HIS BE OTHER HENRY. U* 

tip their shrill pipes to swell the general con 
cert." * 

While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under 
extreme depression of spirits, caused by his fail- 
ure at Surgeons' Hall, the disappointment of his 
hopes, and his harsh collisions with Griffiths, 
Goldsmith wrote the following letter to his 
brother Henry, some parts of which are most 
louchingly mournful. 

" Dear Sir, — 

" Your punctuality in answering a man whose 
trade is writing, is more than I had reason to ex- 
pect ; and yet you see me generally fill a whole 
sheet, which is all the recompense I can make for 
being so frequently troublesome. The behavior 
of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordi- 
nary. However, their answering neither you nor 
me is a sufficient indication of their disliking the 
employment which I assigned them. As their 
conduct is different from what I had expected, so 
I have made an alteration in mine. I shall, the 
beginning- f next month, send over two hundred 
and fifty books,| which are all that I fancy can be 
well sold among you, and I would have you make 
some distinction in the persons who have sub- 
scribed. The money, which will amount to 
sixty pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley, as 
soon as possible. I am not certain but I shall 
quickly have occasion for it. 

* Tales of a Traveller. 

f The " Inquiry into Polite Literature." His previous re- 
marks apply to the subscription. 



1 20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"I have met with no disappointment with re- 
spect to my East India voyage, nor are my reso- 
lutions altered ; though, at the same time, I must 
confess, it gives me some pain to think I am 
almost beginning the world at the age of thirty- 
one. Though I never had a day's sickness since I 
saw you, yet I am not that strong, active man you 
once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how 
much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and 
study have worn me down. If I remember right, 
you are seven or eight years older than me, yet [ 
dare venture to say, that, if a stranger saw as 
both, he would pay me the honors of seniority. 
Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, 
with two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, 
with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wi^, 
and you may have a perfect picture of my present 
appearance. On the other hand, I conceive you 
as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a 
happy day among your own children, or those who 
knew you a child. 

" Since I knew what it was to be a man, this 
is a pleasure I have not known. I have passed 
my days among a parcel of cool, designing beings, 
and have contracted all their suspicious manner in 
my own behavior. I should actually be as unfit 
for the society of my friends at home, as I detest 
that which I am obliged to partake of here. I 
can now neither partake of the pleasure of a 
re*/ el, or contribute to raise its jollity. I can nei- 
ther laugh nor drink ; have contracted a hesitat- 
ing, disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage 
lhat looks ill -nature itself; hi short, I have 



WORLDLY WISDOM. 127 

thought myself into a settled melancholy, and an 
letter disgust of all that- life brings with it. Whence 
this romantic turn that all our family are possessed 
with ? Whence this love for every place and every 
country but that in which we reside — for every 
occupation but our own ? this desire of fortune, 
and yet this eagerness to dissipate ? I perceive, my 
dear sir, that I am at intervals for indulging this 
splenetic manner, and following my own taste, re- 
gardless of yours. 

" The reasons you have given me for breeding 
up your son a scholar are judicious and convinc- 
ing ; I should, however, be glad to know for 
what particular profession he is designed. If he be 
assiduous and divested of strong passions (for pas- 
sions in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do 
very well in your college ; for it must be owned 
that the industrious poor have good encouragement 
there, perhaps better than in any other in Europe. 
But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an 
exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him 
there, unless you have no other trade for him but 
your own. It is impossible to conceive how much 
may be done by proper education at home. A 
boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well 
Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of 
the civil law, and can write a fine hand, has an 
education that may qualify him for any undertak- 
ing ; and these parts of learning should be care- 
fully inculcated, let him be designed for whatever 
calling he will. 

" Above all things, let him never touch a ro- 
mance or novel : these paint beauty in colors 



128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

more charming than nature, and describe happiness 
that man never tastes. How delusive, how de- 
structive are those pictures of consummate bliss ! 
They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty 
and happiness that never existed ; to despise the 
little good which fortune has mixed in our cup, 
by expecting more than she ever gave ; and, in 
general, take the word of a man who has seen the 
world, and who has studied human nature more 
by experience than precept ; take my word for it, 
I say, that books teach us very little of the world. 
The greatest merit in a state of poverty would 
only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — ■ 
may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, 
and even avarice, in the lower orders of man- 
kind, are true ambition. These afford the only 
ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teacli 
then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and econ- 
omy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be 
placed before his eyes. I had learned from books 
to be disinterested and generous, before I was 
taught from experience the necessity of being 
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions 
of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to 
the approaches of insidious cunning; and often 
by being, even with my narrow finances, charita- 
ble to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and 
placed myself in the very situation of the wretch 
who thanked me for my bounty. When I am in 
ihe remotest part of the world, tell him this, and 
perhaps he may improve from my example. But 
[ find myseif again falling into my gloomy habits 
of thinking. 



LETTER TO HIS BROTHER HEN AY. 129 

" My mother, I am informed, is almost blind 
even though I had the utmost inclination to return 
home, under such circumstances I could not, for 
to behold her in distress without a capacity of re- 
lieving her from it, would add much to my splene- 
tic habit. Your last letter was much too short ; 
it should have answered some queries I had made 
in my former. Just sit down as I do, and write 
forward until you have filled all your paper. It 
requires no thought, at least from the ease with 
which my own sentiments rise when they are ad- 
dressed to you. For, believe me, my head has no 
share in all I write ; my heart dictates the whole. 
Pray give my love to Bob Bryanton, and entreat 
him from me not to drink. My dear sir, give 
me some account about poor Jenny.* Yet her 
husband loves her : if so, she cannot be unhappy. 

" I know not whether I should tell you — yet 
why should I conceal these trifles, or, indeed, any- 
thing from you ? There is a book of mine will 
be published in a few days : the life of a very 
extraordinary man ; no less than the great Vol- 
taire. You know already by the title that it is 
no more than a catchpenny. However, I spent 
out four weeks on the whole performance, for 
which I received twenty pounds. When pub- 
lished, I shall take some method of conveying it 
to you, unless you may think it dear of the post- 
age, which may amount to four or five shillings 
However, I fear you will not find an equivalent 
of amusement. 

* His sister, Mrs. Johnston ; her marriage, like that of Mrs 
Elodson, Avas private, but in pecuniary matters much less fo»- 
tunat<\ # 



130 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; 
you should have given me your opinion of the 
design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. 
You remember I intended to introduce the hero 
of the poem as lying in a paltry ale-house. You 
may take the following specimen of the manner, 
which I flatter myself is quite original. The room 
in which he lies may be described somewhat in 
this way : — 

" ' The window, patched with paper, lent a ray 
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, 
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; 
The game of goose was there exposed to view. 
And the twelve rules l^he royal martyr drew ; 
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place, 
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp-black face. 
The morn was cold : he views with keen desire 
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire ; 
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 
And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney-board.' 

" And now imagine, after his soliloquy the, 
landlord to make his appearance in order to dun 
him for the reckoning : — 

" ' Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay : 
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man, 
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' &c* 

" All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is 
a good remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest 
men often have friends with whom they do not 
care how much they play the fool. Take my 

* The projected poem, of which the above were specimens 
appears never tc have been completed. 



NED PURDON. 131 

present follies as instances of my regard. Poe- 
try is a much easier and more agreeable species 
of composition than prose ; and, could' a man live 
by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be 
a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, though 
I should fill it up only by telling you. what you 
very well know already, I mean that I am your 
most affectionate friend and brother, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The " Life of Voltaire," alluded to in the latter 
part of the preceding letter, was the literary job 
undertaken to satisfy the demands of Griffiths. It 
was to have preceded a translation of the " Henri- 
ade," by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, 
now a Grub-Street writer, who starved rather 
than lived by the exercise of his pen, and often 
tasked Goldsmith's scanty means to relieve his 
hunger. His miserable career was summed up 
by our poet in the following lines written some 
years after the time we are treating of, on hear- 
ing that he had suddenly dropped dead in Smith- 
field : — 

" Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, 
Who long was a bookseller's hack; 
He led such a damnable life in this world, 
I don't think he '11 wish to come back." 

The memoir and translation, though advertised 
to form a volume, were not published together, 
but appeared separately in a magazine. 

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the 
foregoing letter, it appears to have perished in 
embryo. Had it been brought to maturity, we 



132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

should have had further traits of autobiography; 
the room already described was probably his own 
squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court ; and in 
a subsequent morsel of the poem we have the 
poet himself, under the euphonious name of 
Scro^inn : — 

" Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigne 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane : 
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The muse found Scroggin stretch' d beneath a rug; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 
A cap by night, a stocking all the day! " 

It is to be regretted that this poetical concep- 
tion was not carried out ; like the author's other 
writings, it might have abounded with pictures of 
life and touches of nature drawn from his own 
observation and experience, and mellowed by his 
own humane and tolerant spirit ; and might have? 
been a worthy companion or rather contrast to his 
" Traveller " and " Deserted Village," and have 
remained in the language a first-rate specimen of 
the mock-heroic. 




CHAPTER XI. 

Publication of" The Inquiry." — Attack by Griffiths' Review. 
Kenrick the Literary Ishmaelite. — Periodical Literature 
Goldsmith's Essays. — Garrick as a Manager. — Smollett 
and his Schemes. — Change of Lodgings. — The Robin 
Hood Club. 

'0 WARDS the end of March, 1759, the 
treatise on which Goldsmith had laid so 
much stress, on which he at one time 
had calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit 
to India, and to which he had adverted in his cor- 
respondence with Griffiths, made its appearance. 
It was published by the Dodsleys, and entitled 
"An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite 
Learning in Europe." 

In the present day, when the whole field of 
contemporary literature is so widely surveyed and 
amply discussed, and when the current productions 
of every country are constantly collated and ably 
criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith would 
b(.- considered as extremely limited and unsatisfac- 
tory ; but at that time it possessed novelty in its 
views and wideness in its scope, and being indued 
with the peculiar charm of style inseparable from 
the author, it commanded public attention and a 
profitable sale. As it was the most important 
production that had yet come from Goldsmith's 
pen, he was anxious to have the credit of it ; yet it 



134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

appeared without his name on the title-page. TLe 
authorship, however, was well known throughout 
the world of letters, and the author had now 
grown into sufficient literary importance to be- 
come an object of hostility to the underlings of 
the press. One of the most virulent attacks upon 
him was in a criticism on this treatise, and ap- 
peared in the " Monthly Review " to which he him- 
self had been recently a contributor. It slandered 
him as a man while it decried him as an author, 
and accused him, by innuendo, of "laboring under 
the infamy of having, by the vilest and meanest 
actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor and hon- 
esty," and of practising " those acts which bring 
the sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory." 

It will be remembered that the Review was 
owned by Griffiths the bookseller, with whom 
Goldsmith had recently had a misunderstanding. 
The criticism, therefore, was no doubt dictated by 
the lingerings of resentment ; and the imputations 
upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, 
and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could 
only allude to the unfortunate pawning of the 
clothes. All this, too, was after Griffiths had re- 
ceived the affecting letter from Goldsmith, draw- 
ing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and 
after the latter had made him a literary compen- 
sation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the 
falsehood and extravagance of the attack, and 
tried to exonerate himself by declaiing that the 
criticism was written by a person in his employ ; 
but we see no difference in atrocity between him 
who wields the knife and him who hires the cut- 



A LITERARY ISHMAELITE. 1S5 

throat. It may be well, however, in passing, to 
bestow our mite of notoriety upon the miscreant 
who launched the slander. He deserves it for a 
long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not 
merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the 
successful authors of the day. His name was 
Kenrick. He was originally a mechanic, but pos- 
sessing some degree of talent and industry, applied 
himself to literature as a profession. This he pur- 
sued for many years, and tried his hand in every 
department of prose and poetry ; he wrote plays 
and satires, philosophical tracts, critical disserta- 
tions, and works on philology ; nothing from his pen 
ever rose to first-rate excellence, or gained him a 
popular name, though he received from some uni- 
versity the degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. John- 
son characterized his literary career in one short 
sentence. " Sir, he is one of the many who have 
made themselves public without making them- 
selves known" 

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of 
the success of others, his natural irritability of 
temper increased by habits of intemperance, he at 
length abandoned himself to the practice of review- 
ing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of the pres3. 
In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him a 
notoriety which his talents had never been able to 
attain. We shall dismiss him for the present witl 
the following sketch of him by the hand of one of 
his contemporaries : — 

" Dreaming of genius which he never had, 
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad ; 
Seizing, like Shirley, on the poet s lyre, 



336 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

With ail his rage, but not one spark of fire; 

Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear 

From other's brows that wreath he must not wear — 

Next Kenrick came: all furious and replete 

With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit ; 

Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind 

To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined; 

For faults alone behold the savage prowl, 

With reason's offal glut his ravening soul; 

Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks, 

And mumbles, paws, and turns it — till it stinks.' ' 

The British press about this time was extrava- 
gantly fruitful of periodical publications. That 
( ' oldest inhabitant," the " Gentleman's Magazine," 
almost coeval with St. John's gate which graced 
its title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines 
and reviews of all kinds: Johnson's "Rambler" 
had introduced the fashion of periodical essays, 
which he had followed up in his " Adventurer" 
and " Idler." Imitations had sprung up on every 
side, under every variety of name ; until British 
literature was entirely overrun by a weedy and 
transient efflorescence. Many of these rival pe- 
riodicals choked each other almost at the outset, 
and few of them have escaped oblivion. 

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most success- 
ful, such as the " Bee," the 4i Busy-Body ," and the 
" Lady's Magazine." His essays, though character- 
ized by his delightful style, his pure, benevolent 
morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did 
not produce equal effect at first with more garish 
writings of infinitely less value ; they did not 
u strike," as it is termed ; but they had that rare 
a,nd enduring merit which rises in estimation on 
every perusa 1 . They gradually stole upon the 



GARRICK AS A MANAGER. 137 

heart of the public, were copied into numerous 
contemporary publications, and now they are 
garnered up among the choice productions of 
British literature. 

In his " Inquiry into the State of Polite Learn- 
ing," Goldsmith had given offence to David Gar- 
rick, at that time autocrat of the Drama, and was 
doomed to experience its effect. A clamor had 
been raised against Garrick for exercising a despot- 
ism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing 
but old plays to the exclusion of original produc- 
tions. Walpole joined in this charge. " Garrick," 
said he, " is treating the town as it deserves and 
likes to be treated, — with scenes, fire-works, and 
his own writings. A good new play I never expect 
to see more ; nor have seen since the ' Provoked 
Husband,' which came out when I was at school." 
Goldsmith, who was extremely fond of the thea- 
tre, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed 
in his treatise against the wrongs experienced by 
authors at the hands of managers. " Our poet's 
performance," said he, " must undergo a process 
truly chemical before it is presented to the public. 
It must be tried in the manager's fire ; strained 
through a licenser, suffer from repeated correc- 
tions, till it may be a mere caput mortuum when 
it arrives before the public." Again, — " Getting 
a play on even in three or four years is a privilege 
reserved only for the happy few who have the 
arts of courting the manager as well as the 
Muse ; who have adulation to please his vanity, 
powerful patrons to support their merit, or money 
to indemnify disappointment. Our Saxon ances- 



138 OLIVER golds mm. 

tors had but one name for a wit and a witch. I 
will not dispute the propriety of uniting those 
characters then ; but the man who under present 
discouragements ventures to write for the stage, 
whatever claim he may have to the appellation of 
a wit, at least has no right to be called a con- 
jurer." But a passage which perhaps touched 
more sensibly than all the rest on the sensibilities 
of Garrick, was the following : — 

" I have no particular spleen against the fellow 
who sweeps the stage with the besom, or the hero 
who brushes it with his train. It were a matter 
of indifference to me, whether our heroines are in 
keeping, or our candle-snuffers burn their fingers, 
did not such make a great part of public care and 
polite conversation. Our actors assume all that 
state off the stage which they do on it ; and, to 
use an expression borrowed from the green-room, 
every one is up in his part. I am sorry to say it, 
they seem to forget their real characters." 

These strictures were considered by Garrick as 
intended for himself, and they were rankling in 
his mind when Goldsmith waited upon him and 
solicited his vote for the vacant secretaryship of 
the Society of Arts, of which the manager was a 
member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic re- 
nown and his intimacy with the great, and know- 
ing Goldsmith only by his budding reputation, 
may not have considered him of sufficient impor- 
tance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicita- 
tions, he observed that he could hardly expect his 
friendly exertions after the unprovoked attack he 
had made upon his management. Goldsmith re- 



THE "CHINESE LETTERS:' 139 

plied that he had indulged in no personalities, and 
had only spoken what he believed to be the truth. 
He made no further apology nor application ; 
tailed to get the appointment, and considered Gar- 
nVk his enemy. In the second edition of his 
treatise he expunged or modified the passages 
which had given the manager offence ; but though 
the author and actor became intimate in after- 
years, this false step at the outset of their inter- 
course was never forgotten. 

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. 
Smollett, who was about to launch the " British 
Magazine." Smollett was a complete schemer and 
speculator in literature, and intent upon enter- 
prises that had money rather thai$^ reputation in 
view. Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this 
propensity in one of his papers in the " Bee," in 
which he represents Johnson, Hume, and others 
taking seats in the stage-coach bound for Fame, 
while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches. 

Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was 
Mr. John Newbery, who engaged him to contrib- 
ute occasional assays to a newspaper entitled the 
" Public Ledger," which made its first appearance 
m the 12th of January, 1760. His most valua- 
ble and characteristic contributions to this paper 
were his " Chinese Letters," subsequently modified 
into the " Citizen of the World." These lucubra- 
tions attracted general attention ; they were re- 
printed in the various periodical publications of 
the day, and met with great applause. The name 
Df the author, however, was as yet but little 
known. 



140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Being now easier in circumstances, and in the 
receipt of frequent sums from the booksellers, 
Goldsmith, about the middle of 1760, emerged 
from his dismal abode in Green Arbor Court, 
and took respectable apartments in Wine-Office 
Court, Fleet Street. 

Still he continued to look back with considerate 
benevolence to the poor hostess, whose necessities 
he had relieved by pawning his gala coat, for we 
nre told that " he often supplied her with food 
from his own table, and visited her frequently 
with* the sole purpose to be kind to her." 

He now became a member of a debating club 
called the Robin Hood, which used to meet near 
Temple Bar, #id in which Burke, while yet a 
Temple student, had first tried his powers. Gold- 
smith spoke here occasionally, and is recorded in 
the Robin Hood archives as " a candid disputant 
with a clear head and an honest heart, though 
coming but seldom to the society." His relish 
was for clubs of a more social, jovial nature, and 
he was never fond of argument. An amusing 
anecdote is told of his first introduction to the 
club, by Samuel Derrick, an Irish acquaintance of 
some humor. On entering, Goldsmith was struct 
with the self-important appearance of the chair 
man ensconced in a large gilt chair. " This,' 
said he, " must be the Lord Chancellor at least.' 
'• No, no," replied Derrick, " he 's only master oJ 
""he rolls." — The chairman was a baker. 




CHAPTER XII. 

New Lodgings. — Visits of Ceremony. — Hangers-on. — Pil- 
kington and the White Mouse. — Introduction to Dr. 
Johnson. — Davies and his Bookshop. — Pretty Mrs. Da- 
vies. — Foote and his Projects. — Criticism of the Cudgel. 

N his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, 
Goldsmith began to receive visits of 
ceremony, and to entertain his literary 
friends. Among the latter he now numbered sev- 
eral names of note, such as Guthrie, Murphy, 
Christopher Smart, and BickerstafF. He had also 
a numerous class of hangers-on, the small fry of 
literature ; who, knowing his almost utter incapa- 
city to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, now 
that he was considered flush, to levy continual 
taxes upon his purse. 

Among others, one Pilkington, an old college 
acquaintance, but now a shifting adventurer, duped 
him in the most ludicrous manner. He called on 
him with a face full of perplexity. A lady of the 
first rank having an extraordinary fancy for curious 
animals, for which she was willing to give enor- 
mous sums, he had procured a couple of white 
mice +o be forwarded to her from India. They 
were actually on board of a ship in the river. 
Her grace had been apprised of their arrival, and 
was all impatience to see them. Unfortunately 



142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he had no cage to put them in, nor clothes to ap- 
pear in before a lady of her rank. Two guineas 
would be sufficient for his purpose, but where 
were two guineas to be procured ! 

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched ; 
but, alas ! he had but half a guinea in his pocket. 
It was unfortunate, but, after a pause, his friend 
suggested, with some hesitation, " that money might 
be raised upon his watch : it would but be the loan 
of a few hours." So said, so. done ; the watch was 
delivered to the worthv Mr. Pilkino-ton to be 
pledged at a neighboring pawnbroker's, but noth- 
ing farther was ever seen of him, the watch, 01 
the white mice. The next that Goldsmith heard 
of the poor shifting scapegrace, he was on his 
death-bed, starving with want, upon which., forget- 
ting or forgiving the trick he had played upon 
him, he sent him a guinea. Indeed he used often 
to relate with great humor the foregoing anecdote 
of his credulity, and was ultimately in some degree 
indemnified by its suggesting to him the amusing 
little story of Prince Bonbennin and the White 
Mouse in the " Citizen of the World." 

In this year Goldsmith became personally ac- 
quainted with Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was 
drawn by strong sympathies, though their natures 
were widely different. Both had struggled from 
early life with poverty, but had struggled in dif- 
ferent ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, san- 
guine, tolerant of evils, and easily pleased, had 
shifted along by any temporary expedient ; cast 
down at every turn, but rising again with indom- 
itable good-Jmuior, and still carried forward by his 



DR. JOHNSON. 143 

talent at hoping. Johnson, melancholy, and hypo- 
chondriacal, and prone to apprehend the worst, yet 
sternly resolute to battle with and conquer it, had 
made his way doggedly and gloomily, but with a 
noble principle of self-reliance and a disregard of 
foreign aid. Both had been irregular at college : 
Goldsmith, as we have shown, from the levity of 
his nature and his social and convivial habits ; 
Johnson, from his acerbity and gloom. When, in 
after-life, the latter heard himself spoken of as gay 
and frolicsome at college, because he had joined 
in some riotous excesses there, " Ah, sir ! " replied 
he, " I was mad and violent. It was bitterness 
which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably 
poor, and I thought to fight my way by my litera- 
ture and my wit. So I disregarded all power and 
all authority." 

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by 
bitterness ; but neither was it accompanied by the 
guardian pride which kept Johnson from falling 
into the degrading shifts of poverty. Goldsmith 
had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and 
helping himself along by the contributions of his 
friends ; no doubt trusting in his hopeful way, 
of one day making retribution. Johnson never 
hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his 
sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he could 
not master. In his youth, when some unknown 
friend, seeing his shoes completely worn out, left 
a new pair at his chamber-door, he disdained to 
accept the boon, and threw them away. 

Though like Goldsmith an unmethodical stu- 
dent, he had imb'bed deeper draughts of knowl- 
10 



144 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

edge, and made himself a riper scholar. While 
Goldsmith's happy constitution and genial humors 
carried him abroad into sunshine and enjoyment, 
Johnson's physical infirmities and mental gloom 
drove him upon himself ; to the resources of read- 
ing and meditation ; threw a deeper though darker 
enthusiasm into his mind, and stored a retentive 
memory with all kinds of knowledge. 

After several years of youth passed in the coun- 
try as usher, teacher, and an occasional writer for 
the press, Johnson, when twenty-eight years of 
age, came up to London with a half-written trag- 
edy in his pocket ; and David Garrick, late his 
pupil, and several years his junior, as a companion, 
both poor and penniless, — both, like Goldsmith, 
seeking their fortune in the metropolis. " We 
rode and tied," said Garrick sportively in after- 
years of prosperity, when he spoke of their hum- 
ble wayfaring. " I came to London," said John- 
son, " with twopence halfpenny in my pocket." — • 
" Eh, what 's that you say ? " cried Garrick, " with 
twopence halfpenny in your pocket ? " " Why, 
yes : I came with twopence halfpenny m my pock- 
et, and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in 
thine." Nor was there much exaggeration in the 
picture ; for so poor were they in purse and credit, 
that after their arrival they had, with difficulty, 
raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a 
bookseller in the Strand. 

Many, many years had Johnson gone on ob- 
scurely in London, " fighting his way by his liter- 
ature and his wit ; " enduring all the hardships and 
miseries of a Grub-Street writer : so destitute at 



DR. JOHNSON. 145 

one time, that he and Savage the poet had walked 
all night about St. James's Square, both too poor 
to pay for a night's lodging, yet both full of poe- 
try and patriotism, and determined to stand by 
their country ; so shabby in dress at another time, 
that, when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller, 
when there was prosperous company, he could 
not make his appearance at table, but had his din- 
ner handed to him behind a screen. 

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, 
often diseased in mind as well as in body, he had 
been resolutely self-dependent, and proudly self- 
respectful; he had fulfilled his college vow, he 
had " fought his way by his literature and wit." 
His " Ramoler " and " Idler " had made him the 
great moralist of the age, and his " Dictionary 
and History of the English Language," that stu- 
pendous monument of individual labor, had ex- 
cited the admiration of the learned world. He 
was now at the head of intellectual society ; and 
had become as distinguished by his conversational 
as his literary powers. He had become as much 
an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow-wayfarer 
and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage, 
and had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, 
" The Great Cham of Literature." 

Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 3 1st of 
May, 1761, he was to make his appearance as a 
guest at a literary supper given by Goldsmith to 
a numerous party at his new lodgings in Wine- 
Office Court. It was the opening of their ac- 
quaintance. Johnson had felt and acknowledged 
the merit of Goldsmith as an author, and been 



14G OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

pleased by the honorable mention made of him- 
Belf in the " Bee " and the Chinese Letters. Dr. 
Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Gold- 
smith's lodgings ; he found Johnson arrayed with 
unusual care in a new suit of clothes, a new hat, 
and a well-powdered wig ; and could not but no- 
tice his uncommon spruceness. " Why, sir," re- 
plied Johnson, " I hear that Goldsmith, who is a 
very great sloven, justifies his disregard of clean- 
liness and decency by quoting my practice, and I 
am desirous this night to show him a better ex- 
ample." 

The acquaintance thus commenced ripened 
into intimacy in the course of frequent meetings 
at the shop of Davies, the bookseller, in Russell 
Street, Covent Garden. As this was one of the 
great literary gossiping-places of the day, espe- 
cially to the circle over which Johnson presided, it 
is worthy of some specification. Mr. Thomas 
Davies, noted in after-times as the biographer of 
Garrick, had originally been on the stage, and 
though a small man, had enacted tyrannical tragedy 
with a pomp and magniloquence beyond his size, 
if we may trust the description given of him by 
Churchill in the " Rosciad " : — 

" Statesman all over — in plots famous grown, 
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a Joree." 

This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled 
him in the midst of his tragic career, and ulti- 
mately to have driven him from the stage. He 
carried into the bookselling craft somewhat of the 
grandiose manner of the stage, and was prone to 
be mcuthy and magniloquent. 



DAVIES AND HIS BOOKSHOP. 147 

Churchill had intimated, that while on the stage 
he was more noted for his pretty wife than his 
good acting : — 

" With him came mighty Davies ; on my life, 
That fellow has a yery pretty wife." 

" Pretty Mrs. Davies " continued to be the load- 
star of his fortunes. Her tea-table became al- 
most as much a literary lounge as her husband's 
shop. She found favor in the eyes of the Ursa 
Major of literature by her winning ways, as she 
poured out for him cups without stint of his favor- 
ite beverage. Indeed it is suggested that she 
was one leading cause of his habitual resort to 
this literary haunt. Others were drawn thither 
for the sake of Johnson's conversation, and thus 
it became a resort of many of the notorieties of 
the day. Here might occasionally be seen Ben- 
net Langton, George Steevens, Dr. Percy, cele- 
brated for his ancient ballads, and sometimes War- 
burton in prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it 
for a time, but soon grew shy and suspicious, de- 
claring that most of the authors who frequented 
Mr. Davies's shop went merely to abuse him. 

Foote, the Aristophanes of the day, was a fre- 
quent visitor ; his broad face beaming with fun 
and waggery, and his satirical eye ever on the 
lookout for characters and incidents for his farces. 
He was struck with the odd habits and appear- 
ance of Johnson and Goldsmith, now so often 
brought together in Davies's shop. He was about 
to put on the stage a farce called The Orators, in- 
tended as a hit at the Robin Hood debating-club, 



148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and resolved to show up the two doctors in it for 
the entertainment of the town. 

" What is the common price of an oak stick, 
sir ? " said Johnson to Davies. " Sixpence," 
was the reply. " Why then, sir, give me leave to 
send your servant to purchase a shilling one, 1 11 
have a double quantity, for I am told Foote 
means to take me off as he calls it, and I am de- 
termined the fellow shall not do it with impu- 
nity." 

Foote had no disposition to undergo the criti- 
cism of the cudgel wielded by such potent hands, 
so the farce of " The Orators " appeared without 
the caricatures of the lexicographer and the es- 
sayist. 




CHAPTER Xm. 

Oriental Projects. — Literary Jobs. — The Cherokee Chiefs. — 
Merry Islington and the "White Conduit House. — Letters 
on the History of England. — James Boswell. — Dinner of 
Davies. — Anecdotes of Johnson and Goldsmith. 




^NOTWITHSTANDING his growing suc- 
cess, Goldsmith continued to consider 
literature a mere makeshift, and his va- 
grant imagination teemed with schemes and plans 
of a grand but indefinite nature. One was for 
visiting the East and exploring the interior of 
Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a 
vague notion that valuable discoveries were to be 
made there, and many useful inventions in the 
arts brought back to the stock of European knowl- 
edge. " Thus, in Siberian Tartary," observes he, 
in one of his writings, " the natives extract a 
strong spirit from milk, which is a secret probably 
unknown to the chemists of Europe. In the 
most savage parts of India they are possessed of 
the secret of dyeing vegetable substances scarlet, 
and that of refining lead into a metal which, for 
hardness and color, is little inferior to silver." 

Goldsmith adds a description of the kind of 
person suited to such an enterprise, in which he 
Evidently had himself in view. 

" He should be a man of philosophical turn, 



150 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

one apt to deduce consequences of general utility 
from particular occurrences ; neither swoln with 
pride, nor hardened by prejudice ; neither wedded 
to one particular system, nor instructed only in 
one particular science ; neither wholly a botanist, 
nor quite an antiquarian ; his mind should be 
tinctured with miscellaneous knowledge, and his 
manners humanized by an intercourse with men. 
He should be in some measure an enthusiast to 
the design ; fond of travelling, from a rapid imag- 
ination and an innate love of change ; furnished 
with a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, 
and a heart not easily terrified at danger." 

In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime min- 
ister on the accession of George the Third, Gold- 
smith drew up a memorial on the subject, suggest- 
ing the advantages to be derived from a mission 
to those countries solely for useful and scientific 
purposes ; and, the better to insure success, he 
preceded his application to the government by an 
ingenious essay to the same effect in the " Public 
Ledger." 

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his 
project most probably being deemed the dream of 
a visionary. Still it continued to haunt his mind, 
and he would often talk of making an expedition 
to Aleppo some time or other, when his means 
were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar to 
the East, and to bring home such as might be val- 
uable. Johnson, who knew how little poor Gold- 
smith was fitted by scientific lore for this favorite 
scheme of his fancy, scoffed at the project when 
it was mentioned to him. " Of all men," said he. 



THE CHEROKEE CHIEFS. 151 

u Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such 
an inquiry, for he is utterly ignorant of such arts 
as we already possess, and, consequently, could 
not know what would be accessions to our pres* 
ent stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he woulij 
bring home a grinding-barrow, which you see uj 
every street in London, and think that he had fur 
nished a wonderful improvement." 

His connection with Newbery the bookseller 
now led him into a variety of temporary jobs, 
such as a pamphlet on the Cock-Lane Ghost, a Life 
of Beau Nash, the famous Master of Ceremonies 
at Bath, &c. : one of the best things for his fame, 
however, was the remodelling and republication 
of his Chinese Letters under the title of " The 
Citizen of the World," a work which has long 
since taken its merited stand among the classics of 
the English language. " Few works," it has been 
observed by one of his biographers,- " exhibit a 
nicer perception, or more delicate delineation of 
life and manners. "Wit, humor, and sentiment 
pervade every page ; the vices and follies of the 
day are touched with the most playful and divert- 
ing satire ; and English characteristics, in endless 
variety, are bit off with the pencil of a master." 

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, 
he often mingled in strange scenes and got in- 
volved in whimsical situations. In the summer 
of 1762 he was one of the thousands who went 
to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in 
one of his writings. The Indians made their ap- 
pearance in grand costume, hideously painted and 
besmeared. In the course of the visit Goldsmith 



152 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

made one of the chiefs a present, who, in the ecs- 
tasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace that 
left his face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre. 
Towards the close of 1762 he removed to 
" merry Islington," then a country village, though 
now swallowed up in omnivorous London. He 
went there for the benefit of country air, his health 
being injured by literary application and confine- 
ment, and to be near his chief employer, Mr. New- 
bery, who resided in the Canonbury House. In 
this neighborhood he used to take his solitary ram- 
bles, sometimes extending his walks to the gar- 
dens of the " White Conduit House," so famous 
among the essayists of the last century. While 
strolling one day in these gardens, he met three 
females of the family of a respectable tradesman 
to whom he was under some obligation. With 
his prompt disposition to oblige, he conducted 
them about the garden, treated them to tea, and 
ran up a bill in the most open-handed manner 
imaginable ; it was only when he came to pay that 
he found himself in one of his old dilemmas — he 
had not the wherewithal in his pocket. A scene 
of perplexity now took place between him and the 
waiter, in the midst of which came up some of 
his acquaintances, in whose eyes he wished to 
stand particularly well. This completed his mor- 
tification. There was no concealing the awkward- 
ness of his position. The sneers of the waiter re- 
vealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves 
for some time at his expense, professing their ina- 
bility to relieve him. When, however, they had 
enjoyed their banter, the waiter was paid, and 



HIS "HISTORY OF ENGLAND." 153 

poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies 
with flying colors. 

Among the various productions thrown off by 
liim for the booksellers during this growing period 
of his reputation, was a small work in two vol- 
umes, entitled " The History of England, in a Se- 
ries of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son." It 
was digested from Hume, E-apin, Carte, and Ken- 
net. These authors he would read in the morn- 
ing ; make a few notes ; ramble with a friend 
into the country about the skirts of " merry Is- 
lington." ; return to a temperate dinner and cheer- 
ful evening ; and, before going to bed, write off 
what had arranged itself in his head from the 
studies of the morning. In this way he took a 
more general view of the subject, and wrote in a 
more free and fluent style than if he had been 
mousing at the time among authorities. The 
work, like many others written by him in the 
earlier part of his literary career, was anonymous. 
Some attributed it to Lord Chesterfield, others to 
Lord Orrery, and others to Lord Lyttelton. The 
latter seemed pleased to be the putative father, 
and never disowned the bantling thus laid at his 
door ; and well might he have been proud to be 
considered capable of producing what has been 
well-pronounced " the most finished and elegant 
summary of English history in the same compass 
that has been or is likely to be written." 

The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be per- 
ceived, grew slowly ; he was known and esti- 
mated by a few ; but he had not those brilliant 
though fallacious qualities winch flash upon the 



154 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

public, and excite loud but transient applause. 
His works were more read than cited ; and the 
charm of style, for which he was especially noted, 
was more apt to be felt than talked about. He 
used often to repine, in a half humorous, half 
querulous maimer, at his tardiness in gaining the 
laurels which he felt to be his due. " The pub- 
lic," he would exclaim, " will never do me justice ; 
whenever I write anything, they make a point to 
know nothing about it." 

About the beginning of 1763 he became ac- 
quainted with Boswell, whose literary gossipings 
were destined 7 to have a deleterious effect upon 
his reputation. Boswell was at that time a young 
man, light, buoyant, pushing, and presumptuous. 
He had a morbid passion for mingling in the 
society of men noted for wit and learning, and 
had just arrived from Scotland, bent upon mak- 
ing his way into the literary circles of the me- 
tropolis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the 
great literary luminary of the day, was the 
crowning object of his aspiring and somewhat 
ludicrous ambition. He expected to meet him at 
a dinner to which he was invited at Davies the 
bookseller's, but was disappointed. Goldsmith 
was present, but he was not as yet sufficiently 
renowned to excite the reverence of Boswell. 
"At this time," says he in his Notes, " I think he 
had published nothing with his name, though it 
was pretty generally understood that one Dr. 
Goldsmith was the author of ' An Inquiry into 
(he Present State of Polite Learning in Europe/ 
And of ' The Citizen of the World,' a series of 



JAMES BOS WELL. ]55 

letters supposed to be written from London, \j a 
Chinese." 

A conversation took place at table between 
Goldsmith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, compiler of 
the well-known collection of modern poetry, as to 
the merits of the current poetry of the day. 
Goldsmith declared there was none of superior 
merit. Dodsley cited his own collection in proof 
of the contrary. " It is true," said he, " we can 
boast of no palaces nowadays, like Dryden's 
* Ode to St. Cecilia's Day,' but we have villages 
composed of very pretty houses." Goldsmith, 
however, maintained that there was nothing above 
mediocrity, an opinion in which Johnson, to whom 
it was repeated, concurred, and with reason, for 
the era was one of the dead levels of British 
poetry. 

Boswell has made no note of this conversa- 
tion ; he was an unitarian in his literary devo- 
tion, and disposed to worship none but Johnson. 
Little Davies endeavored to console him for his 
disappointment, and to stay the stomach of his 
curiosity, by giving him imitations of the great 
lexicographer ; mouthing his words, rolling his 
head, and assuming as ponderous a manner as 
his petty person would permit. Boswell was 
shortly afterwards made happy by an introduc- 
tion to Johnson, of whom he became the obsequi- 
ous satellite. From him he likewise imbibed a 
more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, 
though he was fain to consider them derived in 
a great measure from his Magnus Apollo. " He 
had sagacity enough," says he, " to cultivate as- 



1.56 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

siduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his 
faculties were gradually enlarged by the contem- 
plation of such a model. To me and many others 
it appeared that he studiously copied the manner 
of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale." 
So on another occasion he calls him " one of the 
brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school." 
" His respectful attachment to Johnson," adds he, 
" was then at its height ; for his own literary 
reputation had not yet distinguished him so much 
as to excite a vain desire of competition with his 
great master." 

What beautiful instances does the garrulous 
Boswell give of the goodness of heart of John- 
son, and the passing homage to it by Goldsmith. 
They were speaking of a Mr. Levett, long an in- 
mate of Johnson's house and a dependent on his 
bounty ; but who, Boswell thought, must be an 
irksome charge upon him. " He is poor and 
honest," said Goldsmith, " which is recommenda- 
tion enough to Johnson." 

Boswell mentioned another person of a very 
bad character, and wondered at Johnson's kind- 
ness to him. " He is now become miserable," 
said Goldsmith, " and that insures the protection 
of Johnson." Encomiums like these speak almost 
as much for the heart of him who praises as of 
him who is praised. 

Subsequently, when Boswell had become more 
intense in his literary idolatry, he affected to 
undervalue Goldsmith, and a lurking hostility to 
him is discernible throughout his writings, which 
some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy 



JEALOUSY OF BOS WELL. 157 

yf the superior esteem evinced for the poet by 
Dr. Johnson. We have a gleam of this in his 
account of the first evening he spent in company 
with those two eminent authors at their famous 
resort, the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet Street. This 
took place on the 1st of July, 1768. The trio 
supped together, and passed some time in literary 
conversation. On quitting the tavern, Johnson, 
who had now been sociably acquainted with Gold- 
smith for two years, and knew his merits, took 
him with him to drink tea with his blind pen- 
sioner, Miss Williams, — a high privilege among 
his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a recent 
acquaintance, whose intrusive sycophancy had not 
yet made its way into his confidential intimacy, 
he gave no invitation. Boswell felt it with all 
the jealousy of a little mind. " Dr. Goldsmith,'"' 
says he, in his Memoirs, " being a privileged man, 
went with him, strutting away, and calling to me 
with an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric 
over an exoteric disciple of a sage of antiquity, 
' I go to Miss Williams/ I confess I then envied 
him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed to 
be so proud ; but it was not long before I ob- 
tained the same mark of distinction." 

Obtained ! but how ? not like Goldsmith, by 
the force of unpretending but congenial merit, 
but by a course of the most pushing, contriving, 
and spaniel-like subserviency. Really, the ambi- 
tion of the man to illustrate his mental insignifi- 
cance, by continually placing himself in juxtaposi- 
tion with the great lexicographer, has something 
in it perfectly ludicrous. Never, since the day* 



158 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there 
been presented to the world a more whimsically 
contrasted pair of associates than Johnson and 
Boswell. 

" Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels ? " 
asked some one when Boswell had worked his 
way into incessant companionship. " He is not a 
cur," replied Goldsmith, " you are too severe ; he 
is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson 
in spo^t, and he has the faculty of sticking." 





CHAPTER XIV. 

Hogarth a Visitor at Islington; His Character. — Street 
Studies. — -Sympathies between Authors and Painters. — 
Sir Joshua Reynolds; His Character; His Dinners. — 
The Literary Club ; Its Members. — Johnson's Revels 
with Lanky and Beau. — Goldsmith at the Club. 

MONG the intimates who used to visit 
« the poet occasionally in his retreat at Is- 
lington, was Hogarth the painter. Gold- 
smith had spoken well of him in his essays in the 
" Public Ledger," and this formed the first link in 
their friendship. He was at this time upwards 
of sixty years of age, and is described as a^tout, 
active, bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, sa- 
tirical and dogmatic, yet full of real benevolence 
and the love of human nature. He was the mor- 
alist and philosopher of the pencil ; like Goldsmith 
he had sounded the depths of vice and misery, 
without being polluted by them ; and though his 
picturings had not the pervading amenity of those 
of the essayist, and dwelt more on the crimes and 
vices than the follies and humors of mankind, yet 
they were all calculated, in like manner, to fill 
the mind with instruction and precept, and to 
make the heart better. 

Hogarth does not appear to have had much of 
the rural feeling with which Goldsmith was so 
11 



160 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

amply endowed, and may not have a (companies 
liim in his strolls about hedges and green lanes ; 
but he was a fit companion with whom to explore 
the mazes of London, in which he was continue 
ally on the lookout for character and incident, 
One of Hogarth's admirers speaks of having come 
upon him in Castle Street, engaged in one of his 
street-studies, watching two boys who were quar- 
relling ; patting one on the back who flinched, 
and endeavoring to spirit him up to a fresh en- 
counter. " At him again ! D — him, if I would 
take it of him ! At him again ! " 

A frail memorial of this intimacy between the 
painter and the poet exists in a portrait in oil, 
called " Goldsmith's Hostess." It is supposed to 
have been painted by Hogarth in the course of his 
visits to Islington, and given by him to the poet 
as a means of paying his landlady. There are no 
friendships among men of talents more likely to 
be sincere than those between painters and poets. 
Possessed of the same qualities ef mind, governed 
by the same principles of taste and natural laws 
of grace and beauty, but applying them to differ- 
ent yet mutually illustrative arts, they are con* 
stantly in sympathy, and never in collision with 
each other. 

A still more congenial intimacy of the kind 
was that contracted by Goldsmith with Mr. (after- 
wards Sir Joshua) Reynolds. The latter was now 
about forty years of age, a few years older than 
the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness and 
benignity of his manners, and the not leness and 
generosity of his disposition, as much as he did 



SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 161 

by the graces of his pencil and the magic .if his 
coloring. They were men of kindred genius, 
excelling in corresponding qualities of their sev- 
eral arts, for style in writing is what color is in 
painting ; both are innate endowments, and equally 
magical in their effects. Certain graces and har- 
monies of both may be acquired by diligent study 
and imitation, but only in a limited degree ; 
whereas by their natural possessors they are exer- 
cised spontaneously, almost unconsciously, and with 
ever-varying fascination. Reynolds soon under- 
stood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, 
and a sincere and lasting friendship ensued be- 
tween them. 

At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a 
higher range of company than he had been ac- 
customed to. The fame of this celebrated artist, 
and his amenity of manners, were gathering round 
him men of talents of all kinds, and the increas- 
ing affluence of his circumstances enabled him to 
give full indulgence to his hospitable disposition. 
Poor Goldsmith had not yet, like Dr. Johnson, 
acquired reputation enough to atone for his exter- 
nal defects and his want of the air of good soci- 
ety. Miss Reynolds used to inveigh against his 
personal appearance, which gave her the idea, she 
said, of a low mechanic, a journeyman tailor 
One evening at a large supper-party, being called 
upon to give as a toast the ugliest man she knew, 
she gave Dr. Goldsmith, upon which a lady who 
Bat opposite, and whom she had never met be- 
fore, shook hands with her across the table, and 
' hoped to become better acquainted." 



162 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

We have a graphic and amusing picture of 
Reynolds's hospitable but motley establishment, in 
an account given by a Mr. Courtenay to Sir 
James Mackintosh; though it speaks of a time 
after Reynolds had received the honor of knight- 
hood. " There was something singular," said he, 
" in the style and economy of Sir Joshua's table 
that contributed to pleasantry and good-humor, — 
a coarse, inelegant plenty, without any regard to 
order and arrangement. At five o'clock precisely, 
dinner was served, whether all the invited guests 
had arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so 
fashionably ill-bred as to wait an hour perhaps 
for two or three persons of rank or title, and put 
the rest of the company out of humor by this 
invidious distinction. His invitations, however, 
did not regulate the number of his guests. 
Many dropped in uninvited. A table prepared 
for seven or eight was often compelled to contain 
fifteen or sixteen. There was a consequent defi- 
ciency of knives, forks, plates, and glasses. The 
attendance was in the same style, and those who 
were knowing in the ways of the house took care 
on sitting down to call instantly for beer, bread, or 
wine, that they might secure a supply before the 
first course was over. He was once prevailed on 
lo furnish the table with decanters and glasses at 
dinner, to save time and prevent confusion. 
These gradually were demolished in the course 
of service, and were never replaced. These tri- 
fling embarrassments, however, only served to en- 
hance the hilarity and singular pleasure of the en- 
tertainment. The wiue, cookery, and dishes were 



THE LITERARY CLUB. 163 

but little attended to ; nor was the fish or venison 
ever talked of or recommended. Amidst this con- 
vivial animated bustle among his guests, our host 
sat perfectly composed ; always attentive to whai 
was said, never minding what was ate or drank, 
but left every one at perfect liberty to scramble 
for himself." 

Out of the casual but frequent meeting of men 
of talent at this hospitable board rose that associ- 
ation of wits, authors, scholars, and statesmen, re- 
nowned as the Literary Club. Reynolds was the 
first to propose a regular association of the kind, 
and was eagerly seconded by Johnson, who pro- 
posed as a model a club which he had formed 
many years previously in Ivy Lane, but which 
was now extinct. Like that club the number of 
members was limited to nine. They were to meet 
and sup together once a week, on Monday night, 
at the Turk's Head on Gerard Street, Soho, and 
two members were to constitute a meeting. It 
took a regular form in the year 1764, but did 
not receive its literary appellation until several 
years afterwards. 

The original members were Reynolds, John- 
son, Burke, Dr. Nugent, Bennet Langton, Top- 
ham Beauclerc, Chamier, Hawkins, and Gold- 
smith ; and here a few words concerning some of 
the members may be acceptable. Burke was at 
that time about thirty-three years of age ; he had 
mingled a little in politics and been Under-Sec- 
retary to Hamilton at Dublin, but was again a 
ttriter for the booksellers, and as yet but in the 
dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his father 



164 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

in-law, a Roman Catholic, and a physician of 
talent and instruction. Mr. (afterwards Sir John) 
Hawkins was admitted into this association from 
having been a member of Johnson's Ivy-Lane 
club. Originally an attorney, he had retired 
from the practice of the law, in consequence of a 
lai-ge fortune which fell to him in right of his 
wife, and was now a Middlesex magistrate. He 
was, moreover, a dabbler in literature and music, 
and was actually engaged on a history of music, 
which he subsequently published in five ponder- 
ous volumes. To him we are also indebted for 
a biography of Johnson, which appeared after the 
death of that eminent man. Hawkins was as 
mean and parsimonious as he was pompous and 
conceited. He forbore to partake of the suppers 
at the club, and begged therefore to be excused 
from paying his share of the reckoning. " And 
was he excused ? " asked Dr. Burney of Johnson. 
" Oh, yes, for no man is angry at another for 
being inferior to himself. We all scorned him 
and admitted his plea. Yet I really believe him 
to be an honest man at bottom, though to be sure 
he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be 
owned he has a tendency to savageness." He 
did not remain above two Or three years in the 
club ; being: in a manner elbowed out in conse- 
quence of his rudeness to Burke. 

Mr. Anthony Chamier was Secretary in the 
war-office, and a friend of Beauclerc, by whom 
he was proposed. We have left our mention of 
Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerc until the 
last, because we have most to say about them 



LANG TON AND JOHNSON. 165 

They were doubtless induced to join the club 
trough their devotion to Johnson, and the inti- 
macy of these two very young and aristocratic 
young men with the stern and somewhat melan- 
choly moralist is among the curiosities of litera- 
ture. 

Bennet Langton was of an ancient family, who 
held their ancestral estate of Langton in Lincoln- 
shire, — a great title to respect with Johnson. 
" Langton, sir," he would say, " has a grant of 
free-warren from Henry the Second ; and Cardi- 
nal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was 
of this family." 

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthu- 
siastic nature. When but eighteen years of age 
he was so delighted with reading Johnson's 
•' Rambler," that he came to London chiefly with 
a view to obtain an introduction to the author. 
Boswell gives us an account of his first interview, 
which took place in the morning. It is not often 
that the personal appearance of an author agrees 
with the preconceived ideas of his admirer. Lang- 
ton, from perusing the writings of Johnson, ex- 
pected to find him a decent, well-dressed, in short 
a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of 
which, down from his bedchamber about- noon, 
came, as newly risen, a large uncouth figure, 
with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his 
head, and his clothes hainin^ loose about him. 

7 O O 

But his conversation was so rich, so animated, 
and so forcible, and his religious and political no- 
tions so congenial with those in which Langton 
had been educated, that he ronceived for him 



166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that veneration and attachment which he jver 
preserved. 

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity 
College, Oxford, where Johnson saw much of him 
during a visit which he paid to the University. 
Pie found him in close intimacy with Topham 
Beauclerc, a youth two years older than himself, 
very gay a*d dissipated, and wondered what 
sympathies could draw two young men together 
of such opposite characters. On becoming ac- 
quainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake 
though he was, he possessed an ardent love of 
literature, an acute understanding, polished wit, 
innate gentility, and high aristocratic breeding. 
He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney 
Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of St, 
Albans, and was thought in some particulars to 
have a resemblance to Charles the Second,* 
These were high recommendations with Johnson ; 
and when the youth testified a profound respect 
for him and an ardent admiration of his talents, 
the conquest was complete, so that in a " short 
time," says Boswell, " the moral pious Johnson 
and the gay dissipated Beauclerc were com- 
panions." 

The' intimacy begun in college chambers was 
continued when the youths came to town during 
the vacations. The uncouth, unwieldy moralist 
was flattered at finding himself an object of idola- 
try to two high-born, high-bred, aristocratic young 
men, and throwing gravity aside, was ready to 
join in their vagaries and play the part of a 
' young man upon town." Such at least is the 



LANG TON AND hEAUCLERC. 167 

picture given of him by Bos well on one occasion 
when Beauclerc and Langton, having supped 
together at a tavern, determined to give Johnson 
a rouse at three o'clock in the morning. They 
accordingly rapped violently at the door of his 
chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage 
sallied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a 
little black wig on the top of his head, instead of 
helmet ; prepared to .wreak vengeance on the as- 
sailants of his castle ; but when his two young 
friends Lankey and Beau, as he used to call them, 
presented themselves, summoning him forth to a 
morning ramble, his whole manner changed. 
" What, is it you, ye dogs ? " cried he. " Faith, 
T '11 have a frisk with you ! " 

So said so done. They sallied forth together 
into Covent- Garden ; figured among the green- 
grocers and fruit- women, just come in from the 
country with their hampers ; repaired to a neigh- 
boring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of 
hishop, a favorite beverage with him, grew merry 
over his cups, and anathematized sleep in two 
lines, from Lord Lansdowne's drinking-song : — 

" Short, very short, be then thy reign, 
For I 'm in haste to laugh and drink again." 

They then took boat again, rowed to Billings- 
gate, and Johnson and Beauclerc determined, 
like. " mad wags," to " keep it up " for the rest of 
the day. Langton, however, the most sober- 
minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to 
breakfast with some young ladies ; whereupon 
the great moralist reproached him with " leaving 



168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

his social friends to go and sit with a set of 
wretched un-idectd girls." 

This madcap freak of the great lexicographer 
made a sensation, as may well be supposed, 
among his intimates. " I heard of your frolic 
t' other night," said Garrick to him ; " you '11 be 
in the ' Chronicle.' " He uttered worse forebod- 
ings to others. " I shall have my old friend to 
bail out of the round-house," said he. v Johnson, 
however, valued himself upon having thus en- 
acted a chapter in the " Rake's Progress," and 
crowed over Garrick on the occasion. " He durst 
not do such a thing ! " chuckled he ; " his wife 
would not let him ! " 

When these two young men entered the club, 
Langton was about twenty-two, and Beauclerc 
about twenty-four years of age, and both were 
launched on London life. Langton, however, was 
still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the 
lips in Greek, with fine conversational powers, and 
an invaluable talent for listening. He was up- 
wards of six feet high, and very spare. " Oh ! 
that we could sketch him," exclaims Miss Haw- 
kins, in her " Memoirs," " with his mild counte- 
nance, his elegant features, and his sweet smile, 
sitting with one leg twisted round the other, as if 
fearing to occupy more space than was equitable ; 
his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength 
lo support his weight, and his arms crossed over 
his bosom, or his hands locked together on his 
knee." Beauclerc, on such occasions, sportively 
compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, 
standing on one leg. Beaucler< was more a " man 



TOPE AM BEAU CLE RC. 169 

upon town," a lounger in St. James's Street, an 
associate with George Selwyn, with Walpole, and 
other aristocratic wits ; a man of fashion at court ; 
a casual frequenter of the gaming-table ; yet, with 
all this, he alternated in the easiest and happiest 
manner the scholar and the man of letters ; lounged 
into the club with the most perfect self-possession, 
bringing with him the careless grace and polished 
wit of high-bred society, but making himself cor- 
dially at home among his learned fellow-members. 

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway 
over Johnson, who was fascinated by that air of 
the world, that ineffable tone of good society in 
which he felt himself deficient, especially as the 
possessor of it always paid homage to his superior 
talent. " Beauclerc," he would say, using a quo 
tation from Pope, u has a love of folly, but a scorn 
of fools ; everything he does shows the one, and 
everything he says, the other." Beauclerc de- 
lighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom 
others stood in awe, and no one, according to Bos- 
well, could take equal liberty with him with im- 
punity. Johnson, it is well known, was often 
shabby and negligent in his dress, and not over- 
cleanly in his person. On receiving a pension 
from the crown, his friends vied with each other 
in respectful congratulations. Beauclerc simply 
scanned his person with a whimsical glance, and 
hoped that, like FalstafF, " he 'd in future purge and 
live cleanly like a gentleman." Johnson took the 
hint with unexpected good-humor, and profited 
by it. 

Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted 



170 OLIVER GOLDSMITH- 

shafts on every side, was not always tolerated by 
Johnson. " Sir," said he on one occasion, " you 
never open your mouth but with intention to 
give pain ; and you have often given me pain, not 
from the power of what you have said, but from 
seeing your intention." 

When it was at first proposed to enroll Goldsmith 
among the members of this association, there seems 
to have been some demur ; at least so says the 
pompous Hawkins. " As he wrote for the book- 
sellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere 
literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and 
translating, but little capable of original and still 
less of poetical composition." 

Even for some time after his admission he con- 
tinued to be regarded in a dubious light by some 
of the members. Johnson and Reynolds, of course, 
were well aware of his merits, nor was Burke a 
stranger to them ; but to the others he was as yet 
a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossess- 
ing. His ungainly person and awkward manners 
were against him with men accustomed to the 
graces of society, and he was not sufficiently at 
home to give play to his humor and to that bon- 
hommie which won the hearts of all who knew 
him. He felt strange and out of place in this 
new sphere; he felt at times the cool satirical eye 
of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him, and the 
move he attempted to appear at his ease, the 
more awkward he became. 




CHAPTER XV. 




Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith ; Finds him in Distress with 
his Landlady; Relieved by the Vicar of Wakefield. — The 
Oratorio. — Poem of the Traveller. — The Poet and his Dog. 
Success of the Poem. — Astonishment of the Club. — Ob- 
servations on the Poem. 

IOHNSON had now become one of Gold- 
smith's best friends and advisers. He 
9J|&£^| knew all the weak points of his charac- 
ter, but he knew also his merits ; and while he 
would rebuke him like a child, and rail at his 
errors and follies, he would suffer no one else to 
undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness 
of his judgment and his practical benevolence, and 
often sought his counsel and aid amid the difficul- 
ties into which his heedlessness was continually 
plunging him. 

" I received one morning," says Johnson, " a 
message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great 
distress, and, as it was not in his power to come 
to me, begging that I would come to him as soon 
is possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to 
come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon 
as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had 
arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a 
violent passion : I perceived that he had already 
changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira 



172 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and a glass before him. I put the cork into the 
bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to 
talk to him of the means by which he might be 
extricated. He then told me he had a novel 
ready for the press, which he produced to me. I 
looked into it and saw its merit ; told the landlady 
I should soon return ; and, having gone to a book- 
seller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Gold- 
smith the money, and he discharged his rent, not 
without rating his landlady in a high tone for hav- 
ing used him so ill." 

The novel in question was the " Vicar of 
Wakefield " ; the bookseller to whom Johnson 
sold it was Francis Newbery, nephew to John. 
Strange as it may seem, this captivating work, 
which has obtained and preserved an almost unri- 
valled popularity in various languages, was so lit- 
tle appreciated by the bookseller, that he kept it 
by him for nearly two years unpublished ! 

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of 
moment in poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is 
true, was an Oratorio entitled " The Captivity," 
founded on the bondage of the Israelites in Bab- 
ylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of 
the Muse ushered into existence amid the distor- 
tions of music. Most of the Oratorio has passed 
into oblivion ; but the following song from it will 
never die. 



" The wretch condemned from life to part, 

Still, still on hope relies, 
And every pang that rends the heart 

Bids expectation rise. 



" THE TRAVELLER." 173 

" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, 
Illumes and cheers our way ; 
And still, as darker grows the night, 
Emits a brighter ray." 

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to suc- 
ceed in poetry, and doubted the disposition of 
the public mind in regard to it. " I fear," said 
he, " I have come too late into the world ; Pope 
and other poets have taken up the places in the 
temple of Fame ; and as few at any period can 
pes&&ss poetical reputation, a man of genius can 
now nardly acquire it." Again, on another oc- 
casion, he observes : " Of all kinds of ambition, 
as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that 
which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. 
What from the increased refinement of the tim^s, 
from the diversity of judgment produced by op- 
posing systems of criticism, and from the more 
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, 
the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to 
please but in a very narrow circle." 

At this very time he had by him his poem of 
' The Traveller." The plan of it, as has already 
oeen observed, was conceived many years before, 
luring his travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of 
it sent from that country to his brother Henry in 
Ireland. The original outline is said to have 
embraced a wider scope ; but it was probably 
contracted through diffidence, in the process of 
finishing the parts. It had laid by him for sev- 
eral years in a crude state, and it was with ex- 
treme hesitation and after much revision that he 
•it length submitted it to Dr. Johnson. The frank 



174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and warm approbation of the latter encouraged 
him to finish it for the press ; and Dr. Johnson 
himself contributed a few lines towards the con- 
clusion. 

We hear much about " poetic inspiration," and 
the " poet's eye in a fine phrensy rolling ; " but Sir 
Joshua Reynolds gives an anecdote of Goldsmith 
while engaged upon his poem, calculated to cure 
our notions about the ardor of composition. Call- 
ing upon the poet one day, he opened the door 
without ceremony, and found him in the double 
occupation of turning a couplet and teaching a 
pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time he 
would glance his eye at his desk, and at another 
shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his 
position. The last lines on the page were still 
wet ; they form a part of the description of Italy : 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
The sports of children satisfy the child." 

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in 
the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, 
and acknowledged that his boyish sport with the 
dog suggested the stanza. 

The poem was published on the 19 th of De- 
cember, 1764, in a quarto form, by Newbery, 
and was the first of his works to which Goldsmith 
prefixed his name. As a testimony of cherished 
and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his 
brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation 
of indifference as to its fate expressed in the dedi- 
cation. " What reception a poem may find," says 
he, " which has neither abuse, party, nor blank 
verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solici- 



ASTONISHMENT OF THE CLUB, 175 

tons to know." The truth is, no one was more 
emulous and anxious for poetic fame ; and never 
was he more anxious than in the present instance, 
for it was his grand stake. Mr. Johnson aided 
the launching of the poem by a favorable notice 
in the " Critical Review " ; other periodical works 
came out in its favor. Some of the author's 
friends complained that it did not command instant 
and wide popularity; that it was a poem to 
win, not to strike : it went on rapidly increasing 
in favor ; in three months a second edition was 
issued ; shortly afterwards, a third ; then a 
fourth ; and, before the year was out, the author 
was pronounced the best poet of his time. 

The appearance of " The Traveller " at once 
altered Goldsmith's intellectual standing in the 
estimation of society ; but its effect upon the club, 
if we may judge from the account given by Haw- 
kins, was almost ludicrous. They were lost in 
astonishment that a " newspaper essayist " and 
"bookseller's drudge" should have written such 
a poem. On the evening of its announcement to 
them Goldsmith had gone away early, after " rat- 
tling away as usual," and they knew not how to 
reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene 
beauty, the easy grace, the sound good sense, and 
the occasional elevation of his poetry. They 
could scarcely believe that such magic numbers 
had flowed from a man to whom in general, says 
Johnson, " it was with difficulty they could give 
a hearing." " Well," exclaimed Chamier, " I do 
believe he wrote this poem himself, and let me 
tell you, that is believing a great deal." 
12 



176 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

At the next meeting of the club, Chamier 
Bounded the author a little about his poem. " Mr. 
Goldsmith," said he, " what do you mean by the 
last word in the first line of your ' Traveller,' ' lie- 
mote, unfriended, melancholy, slow ' ? — do you 
mean tardiness of locomotion ? " — " Yes," re- 
plied Goldsmith, inconsiderately, being probably 
flurried at the moment. " No, sir," interposed 
his protecting friend Johnson, " you did not mean 
tardiness of locomotion ; you meant that sluggish- 
ness of mind which comes upon a man in soli- 
tude." — "Ah," exclaimed Goldsmith, " that was 
what I meant." Chamier immediately believed 
that Johnson himself had written the line, and a 
rumor became prevalent that he was the author 
of many of the finest passages. This was ulti- 
mately set at rest by Johnson himself, who marked 
with a pencil all the verses he had contributed, 
nine in number, inserted towards the conclusion, 
and by no means the best in the poem. He 
moreover, with generous warmth, pronounced it 
the finest poem that had appeared since the days 
of Pope. 

But one of the highest testimonials to the 
charm of the poem was given by Miss Reynolds, 
who had toasted poor Goldsmith as the ugliest 
man of her acquaintance. Shortly after the ap- 
pearance of " The Traveller," Dr. Johnson read 
it aloud from beginning to end in her presence. 
" Well," exclaimed she, when he had finished, '•' I 
uever more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly ! " 

On another occasion, when the merits of " The 
Traveller " were discussed at Reynolds's board, 



INCARNATE TOADYISM. 177 

Langton declared " there was not a bad line in 
the poem, not one of Dryden's careless verses." 
" I was glad," observed Reynolds, " to hear 
Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems 
in the English language." " Why was you 
glad?" rejoined Langton, "you surely had no 
doubt of this before." " No," interposed Johnson, 
decisively ; " the merit of ' The Traveller ' is so 
well established that Mr. Fox's praise cannot 
augment it, nor his censure diminish it." 

Boswell, who was absent from England at the 
time of the publication of the " Traveller," was 
astonished, on his return, to find Goldsmith, whom 
he had so much undervalued, suddenly elevated 
almost to a par with his idol. He accounted for 
it by concluding that much both of the sentiments 
and expression of the poem had been derived 
from conversations with Johnson. " He imitates 
you, sir," said this incarnation of toadyism. 
" Why no, sir," replied Johnson, " Jack Hawks- 
worth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. 
Goldy, sir, has great merit." " But, sir, he is 
much indebted to you for his getting so high in 
the public estimation." " Why, sir, he has, per- 
haps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me." 

The poem went through several editions in the 
course of the first year, and received some few ad- 
ditions and corrections from the author's pen. It 
produced a golden harvest to Mr. Newbery ; but 
all the remuneration on record, doled out by his 
niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas ! 




CHAPTER XVI. . 

New Lodgings. — Johnson's Compliment. — A Titled Patron 
The Poet at Northumberland House. — His Independence 
of the Great. — The Countess of Northumberland. — Ed- 
win and Angelina. — Gosfield and Lord Clare. — Publica- 
tion of Essays. — Evils of a Kising Reputation. — Hang- 
ers-on. — Job-Writing. — Goody Two-shoes. — A Medical 

Campaign. — Mrs. Sidebotham. 

i 

pOLDSMITH, now that he was rising in 
the world, and becoming a notoriety, 
felt himself called upon to improve his 
style of living. He accordingly emerged from 
Wine-Office Court, and took chambers in the 
Temple. It is true they were but of humble 
pretensions, situated on what was then the library 
staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind 
of inmate with Jem?, the butler of the society. 
Still he was in the Temple, that classic region 
rendered famous by the Spectator and other 
essayists as the abode of gay wits and thought- 
ful men of letters ; and which, with its retired 
courts and embowered gardens, in the very heart 
of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking 
student and author, an oasis freshening with verd- 
ure in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had 
become a kind of growling supervisor of the 
poet's affairs, paid him a visit soon after he had 
installed himself in his new quarters, and went 



A TITLED PA n RON. 179 

prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted 
manner, examining everything minutely. Gold- 
smith was fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and 
apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, 
with the air of a man who had money in both 
pockets, " I shall soon be in better chambers than 
these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from 
Johnson, which touched the chord of proper 
pride. "Nay, sir," said he, " never mind that. 
Nil te qusesiveris extra," — implying that his 
reputation rendered him independent of outward 
show. Happy would it have been for poor Gold- 
smith, could he have kept this consolatory com- 
pliment perpetually in mind, and squared his 
expenses accordingly. 

Among the persons of rank who were struck 
with the merits of the " Traveller " was the Earl 
(afterwards Duke) of Northumberland. He pro- 
cured several other of Goldsmith's writings, the 
perusal of which tended to elevate the author in 
his good opinion, and to gain for him his good 
will. The Earl held the office of Lord-Lieuten- 
ant of Ireland, and understanding Goldsmith 
was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him 
the patronage which his high post afforded. He 
intimated the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, 
who, he found, was well acquainted with the poet, 
and expressed a wish that the latter should wait 
upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity 
for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been 
knowing and worldly enough to profit by it. 
Unluckily the path to fortune lay through the 
aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, 



180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and the poet blundered at the outset. The fol- 
lowing is the account he used to give of his visit : 
" I dressed myself in the best manner I could, 
and, after studying some compliments I thought 
necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to 
Northumberland House, and acquainted the ser- 
vants that I had" particular business with the 
Duke. They showed me into an antechamber, 
where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, 
very elegantly dressed, made his appearance : 
taking him for the Duke, I delivered all the fine 
things I had composed in order to compliment 
him on the honor he had done me ; when, to my 
great astonishment, he. told me I had mistaken 
him for his master, who would see me immedi- 
ately. At that instant the Duke came into the 
apartment, and I was so confounded on the occa- 
sion that I wanted words barely sufficient to ex- 
press the sense I entertained of the Duke's polite- 
ness, and went away exceedingly chagrined at the 
blunder I had committed." 

Sir John Plawkins, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, 
gives some farther particulars of this visit, of 
which he was, in part, a witness. " Having one 
day," says he, " a call to make on the late Duke 
(then Earl) of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith 
waiting for an audience in an outer room : I 
asked him what had brought him there ; he told 
me, an invitation from his lordship. I made my 
business as short as I could, and, as a reason, 
mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting with- 
out. Tht Earl asked me if I was acquainted 
with him. I told him that I was, adding what 1 



INDEPENDENCE OF CHARACTER. 181 

thought was most likely to recommend him. I 
retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him 
home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the 
result of his conversation. ' His lordship,' said 
he, ' told me he had read my poem, meaning the 
" Traveller," and was much delighted with it ; that 
he was going to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and 
that, hearing I was a native of that country, he 
should be glad to do me any kindness.' ' And 
what did you answer,' said I, ' to this gracious 
offer ? ' i Why,' said he, ' I could say nothing 
but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that 
stood in need of help : as for myself, I have no 
great dependence on the promises of great men ; 
I look to the booksellers for support ; they are 
my best friends, and I am not inclined to forsake 
them for others.' " " Thus," continues Sir John, 
" did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle 
with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was 
held out to assist him." 

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly 
sneer at the conduct of Goldsmith on this occa- 
sion. While we admire that honest independence 
of spirit which prevented him from asking favors 
for himself, we love that warmth of affection 
which instantly sought to advance the fortunes 
of a brother ; but the peculiar merits of poor 
Goldsmith seem to have been little understood by 
the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biog- 
raphers of the day. 

After all, the introduction to Northumberland 
House did not prove so complete a failure as the 
humorous account given by Goldsmith, and the 



182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

cynical account given by Sir John Hawkins, 
might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir 
male of the ancient Percies, brought the poet into 
the acquaintance of his kinswoman, the countess ; 
who, before her marriage with the Earl, was in 
her own right heiress of the House of Northum- 
berland. " She was a lady," says Boswell, " not 
only of high dignity of spirit, such as became 
her noble blood, but of excellent understanding 
and lively talents." Under her auspices a poem 
of Goldsmith's had an aristocratical introduction 
to the world. This was the beautiful ballad of 
" The Hermit," originally published under the 
name of " Edwin and Angelina." It was suggested 
by an old English ballad beginning '" Gentle 
Herdsman," shown him by Dr. Percy, who was 
at that time making his famous collection, entitled 
" Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," which he 
submitted to the inspection of Goldsmith prior 
to publication. A few copies only of " The Her- 
mit " were printed at first, with the following title- 
page : " Edwin and Angelina : a Ballad. By Mr. 
Goldsmith. Printed for the Amusement of the 
Countess of Northumberland." 

All this, though it may not have been attended 
with any immediate pecuniary advantage, contrib- 
uted to give Goldsmith's name and poetry the 
high stamp of fashion, so potent in England : the 
circle at Northumberland House, however, was 
of too stately and aristocratical a nature to b(» 
much to his taste, and we do not find that he be- 
came familiar in it. 

He was much more at home at Gosfield, thf 



GOSFIELD AND LORD CLARE. 183 

seat of his countryman, Robert Nugent, after 
wards Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare, whq 
appreciated his merits even more heartily than 
the Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally 
made him his guest both in town and country. 
Nugent is described as a jovial voluptuary, who 
left the Roman- Catholic for the Protestant relig- 
ion, with a view to bettering his fortunes ; he 
had an Irishman's inclination for rich widows, 
and an Irishman's luck with the sex ; having 
been thrice married, and gained a fortune with 
each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a re- 
markably loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and 
ready, but somewhat coarse wit. With all his 
occasional coarseness he ' was capable of high 
thought, and had produced poems which showed 
a truly poetic vein. He was long a member of 
the House of Commons, where his ready wit, his 
fearless decision, and good-humored audacity of 
expression always gained him a hearing, though 
his tall person and awkward manner gained him 
the nickname of Squire Gawky among the polit- 
ical scribblers of the day. With a patron of this 
jovial temperament, Goldsmith probably felt r%ore 
at ease than with those of higher refinement. 

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired 
by his poem of " The Traveller " occasioned a 
resuscitation of many of his miscellaneous and 
anonymous tales and essays from the various 
newspapers and other transient publications in 
which they lay dormant. These he published in 
1765, in a collected form, under the title of 
* Essays by Mr. Goldsmith." " The foP< wing 



184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Essays," observes he in his preface, " have already 
appeared at different times, and in different pub- 
lications. The pamphlets in which they were 
inserted being generally unsuccessful, these shared 
the common fate, without assisting the booksellers' 
aims, or extending the author's reputation. The 
public were too strenuously employed with their 
own follies to be assiduous in estimating mine ; 
so that many of my best attempts in this way 
have fallen victims to the transient topic of the 
times — the Ghost in Cock Lane, or the Siege 
of Ticonderoga. 

" But, though they have passed pretty silently 
into the world, I can by no means complain of 
their circulation. The magazines and papers of 
the day have indeed been liberal enough in this 
respect. Most of these essays have been regu- 
larly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and con- 
veyed to the public through the kennel of some 
engaging compilation. If there be a pride in 
multiplied editions, I have seen some of my labors 
sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different 
parents as their own. I have seen them flour- 
ished at the beginning with praise, and signed at 
the end with the names of Philautos, Philalethes, 
Phileleutheros, and Philanthropos. It is time, 
however, at last to vindicate my claims ; and as 
these entertainers of the public, as they call 
themselves, have partly lived upon me for some 
years, let me now try if I cannot live a little 
upon myself." 

It was but little, in fact ; for all the pecuniary 
emolument he received from the volume was 



IRISH HANGERS-ON. 185 

twenty guineas. It had a good circulation, how 
ever, was translated into French, and has main- 
tained its stand among the British classics. 

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Gold 
smith had greatly risen, his finances were often at 
a very low ebb, owing to his heedlessness as to 
expense, his liability to be imposed upon, and a 
spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to 
every one who asked. The very rise in his rep- 
utation had increased these embarrassments. It 
had enlarged his circle of needy acquaintances, 
authors poorer in pocket than himself, who came 
in search of literary counsel ; which generally 
meant a guinea and a breakfast. And then his 
Irish hangers-on ! " Our Doctor," said one of 
these sponges, " had a constant levee of his dis- 
tressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he 
was able, he always relieved ; and he has often 
been known to leave himself without a guinea, in 
order to supply the necessities of others." 

This constant drainage of the purse therefore 
obliged him to undertake all jobs proposed by the 
booksellers, and to keep up a kind of running ac- 
count with Mr. Newbery ; who was his banker 
on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes 
for shillings ; but who was a rigid accountant, and 
took care to be amply repaid in manuscript. 
Many effusions, hastily penned in these moments 
of exigency, were published anonymously, and 
never claimed. Some of them have but recently 
been traced to his pen ; while of many the true 
authorship will probably never be discovered. 
Among others, it is suggested, and with great prob- 



186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the famous 
nursery story of " Goody Two Shoes," which ap- 
peared in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith 
was scribbling for Newbery, and much pressed 
for funds. Several quaint little tales introduced 
in his Essays show that he had a turn for this 
species of mock history ; and the advertisement 
and title-page bear the stamp of his sly and play- 
ful humor. 

" We are desired to give notice that there is in 
the press, and speedily will be published, either 
by subscription or otherwise, as the public shall 
please to determine, the ' History of Little Goody 
Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two 
Shoes ; ' with the means by which she acquired 
learning and wisdom, and, in consequence thereof, 
her estate ; set forth at large for the benefit of 
those 

" Who, from a state of rags and care, 
And having shoes but half a pair, 
Their fortune and their fame should fix, 
And gallop in a coach and six." 

The world is probably not aware of— the inge- 
nuity, humor, good sense, and sly satire contained 
in many of the old English nursery-tales. They 
have evidently been the sportive productions of 
able writers, who would not trust their names to 
productions that might be considered beneath 
their dignity. The ponderous works on which 
they relied for immortality have perhaps sunk into 
oblivion, and carried their names down with 
them ; while their unacknowledged offspring, 
'' Jack the Giant Killer," " Giles Gingerbread," 



THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. 187 

and " Tom Thumb," flourish in wide-spreading 
and never-ceasing popularity. 

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and 
an extensive acquaintance, he attempted, with the 
advice of his friends, to procure a more regular 
and ample support by resuming the medical pro- 
fession. He accordingly launched himself upon 
the town in style ; hired a man-servant ; replen- 
ished his wardrobe at considerable expense, and 
appeared in a professional wig and cane, purple 
silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure but- 
toned to the chin : a fantastic garb, as we should 
think at the present day, but not unsuited to the 
fashion of the times. 

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the 
unusual magnificence of purple and fine linen, and 
his scarlet roquelaure flaunting from his shoulders, 
he used to strut into the apartments of his pa- 
tients swaying his three-cornered hat in one hand 
and his medical sceptre, the cane, in the other, 
and assuming an air of gravity and importance 
suited to the solemnity of his wig ; at least, such 
is the picture given of him by the waiting gentle- 
woman who let him into the chamber of one of 
his lady-patients. 

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of 
the duties and restraints of his profession ; his 
practice was chiefly among his friends, and the fees 
were not sufficient for his maintenance ; he was 
disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and 
capricious patients, and looked back with longing 
to his tavern-haunts and broad convivial meetings, 
from which tie dignity and duties of his medi- 



188 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

cal culling restrained him. At length, on pre- 
scribing to a lady of his acquaintance, who, to use 
a hackneyed phrase, " rejoiced " in the aristocrati- 
cal name of Sidebotham, a warm dispute arose 
between him and the apothecary as to the quan- 
tity of medicine to be administered. The Doctor 
stood up for the rights and dignities of his profes- 
sion, and resented the interference of the com- 
pounder of drugs. His rights and dignities, how- 
ever, were disregarded ; his wig and cane and 
scarlet roquelaure were of no avail ; Mrs. Side- 
botham sided with the hero of the pestle and mor- 
tar; and Goldsmith flung out of the house in a 
passion. " I am determined henceforth," said he 
to Topham Beauclerc, " to leave off prescribing 
for friends." " Do so, my dear Doctor," was the 
reply ; " whenever you undertake to kill, let it be 
only your enemies." 

This was the end of Goldsmith's medical ca- 
reer. 





CHAPTER XYTT. 

Publication of the " Vicar of Wakefield " ; Opinions concerning 
it: Of Dr. Johnson; Of Rogers the Poet; Of Goethe; Iti 
Merits ; Exquisite Extract. — Attack by Kenrick. — Re- 
ply. — Book-Building. — Project of a Comedy. 

^HE success of the poem of " The Trav- 
eller," and the popularity which it had 
conferred on its author, now roused the 
attention of the bookseller in whose hands the 
novel of " The Vicar of Wakefield " had been 
slumbering for nearly two long years. The idea 
has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John New- 
bery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and 
much surprise has been expressed that he should 
be insensible to its merit and suffer it to remain 
unpublished, while putting forth various inferior 
writings by the same author. This, however, is 
a mistake ; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, 
who had become the fortunate purchaser. Still 
the delay is equally unaccountable. Some have 
imagined that the uncle and nephew had business 
arrangements together, in which this work was in- 
cluded, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of 
its success, retarded the publication until the full 
harvest of " The Traveller " should be reaped. 
Booksellers are prone to make egregious mistakes 
as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to 



190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and en- 
during excellence, when destitute of that false 
brilliancy commonly called " effect." In the 
present instance, an intellect vastly superior to 
that of either of the booksellers was equally at 
fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking of the work to 
Boswell, some time subsequent to its publication, 
observed, " I myself did not think it would have 
had much success. It was written and sold to a 
bookseller before ' The Traveller/ but published 
after, so little expectation had the bookseller from 
it. Had it been sold after ' The Traveller,' he 
might have had twice as much money ; though 
sixty guineas was no mean price." 

Sixty guineas for the "Vicar of Wakefield " ! 
and this could be pronounced no mean price by 
Dr. Johnson, at that time the arbiter of British 
talent, and who had had an opportunity of wit- 
nessing the effect of the work upon the public 
mind ; for its success was immediate. It came 
out on the 27th of March, 1766 ; before the end 
of May a second edition was called for ; in three 
months more, a third ; and so it went on, widen- 
ing in a popularity that has never flagged. 
Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose 
refined purity of taste and exquisite mental or- 
ganization rendered him eminently calculated to 
app reciate a work of the kind, declared that of 
all the books which through, the fitful changes of 
iluee generations he had seen rise and fall, the 
charm of the " Vicar of Wakefield " had alone con- 
tinued as at first ; and could he revisit the world 
after an interval of many more generations, he 



THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. 191 

should as surely look to find it undiminished. 
Nor has its celebrity been confined to Great Brit 
am. Though so exclusively a picture of British 
scenes and manners, it has been translated into 
almost every language, and everywhere its charm 
has been the same. Goethe, the great genius of 
Germany, declared in his eighty-first year, that it 
was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had 
in a manner formed a part of his education, in- 
fluencing his taste and feelings throughout life, 
and that he had recently read it again from be- 
ginning to end — with renewed delight, and with 
a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from 
it. 

It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities 
of a work which has thus passed from country to 
country, and language to language, until it is now 
known throughout the whole reading-world and 
is become a household book in every hand. The 
secret of its universal and enduring popularity is 
undoubtedly its truth to nature, but to nature of 
the most amiable kind, to nature such as Gold- 
smith saw it. The author, as we have occasion- 
ally shown in the course of this memoir, took his 
scenes and characters in this, as in his other writ- 
ings, from originals in his own motley experi- 
ence ; but he has given them as seen through the 
medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set 
them forth with the colorings of his own good 
head and heart. Yet how contradictory it seems 
that this, one of the most delightful pictures of 
home and homefelt happiness should be drawn by 
a homeless man ; that the most amiable picture 
13 



192 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of domestic virtue and all the endearments of the 
married state should be drawn by a bachelor, who 
had been severed from domestic life almost from 
boyhood ; that one of the most tender, touching, 
and affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness 
should have been made by a man whose deficiency 
in all the graces of person and manner seemed to 
mark him out for a cynical disparager of the sex. 

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the 
work a short passage illustrative of what we 
have said, and which within a wonderfully small 
compass comprises a world of beauty of imagery, 
tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of 
thought, and matchless purity of style. The two 
stanzas which conclude it, in which are told a 
whole history of woman's wrongs and sufferings, 
is, for pathos, simplicity, and euphony, a gem in 
the language. The scene depicted is where the 
poor Vicar is gathering around him the wrecks 
of his shattered family, and endeavoring to rally 
them back to happiness. 

" The next morning the sun arose with pecu- 
liar warmth for the season, so that we agreed to 
breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank ; 
where, while we sat, my youngest daughter at 
my request joined her voice to the concert on the 
trees about us. It was in this place my poor 
Olivia first met her seducer, and every object 
served to recall her sadness. But that melancholy 
which is excited by objects of plea-sure, or in- 
spired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart 
instead of corroding it. Her mo.ther, too, upon 
this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept 



NEWSPAPER ATTACK. 193 

Sintf loved her daughter as before. ' Do, my 
pretty Olivia,' cried she, ' let us have that melan- 
choly air your father was so fond of; your sister 
Sophy has already obliged us. Do, child, it will 
please your old father.' She complied in a man 
ner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me. 

" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
And finds too late that men betray, 
What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt away? 

" ' The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 
And wring his bosom — is to die.' " 

Scarce had the " Vicar of Wakefield " made its 
appearance and been received with acclamation, 
than its author was subjected to one of the usual 
penalties that attend success. He was attacked 
in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he had 
introduced his ballad of " The Hermit," of which, 
as we have mentioned, a few copies had been 
printed some considerable time previously for the 
use of the Countess of Northumberland. This 
brought forth the following article in a fashiona- 
ble journal of the day. 

" To the Printer of the i St. James's Chronicle? 

" Sir, — In the < Reliques of Ancient Poetry,' 
published about two years ago, is a very beauti- 
ful little ballad, called ' A. Friar of Orders Gray.' 
The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that 
the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of ' Ham- 
let' were parts of some ballad well known in 



'94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Shakspeare's time, and from these stanzas, with 
the addition of one or two of his own to connect 
them, he lias formed the above-mentioned ballad ; 
the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent 
to inquire for her love who had been driven 
ihere by her disdain. She is answered by a friar 
that he is dead : — 

" ' No, no, lie is dead, gone to his death's bed. 
He never will come again.' 

The lady weeps and laments her cruelty ; the 
friar endeavors to comfort her with morality and 
religion, but all in vain ; she expresses the deep- 
est grief and the most tender sentiments of love, 
till at last the friar discovers himself : — 

" ' And lo ! beneath this gown of gray 
'I hy own true love appears.' 

" This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, 
joined witn the greatest tenderness, has the 
greatest simplicity ; yet, though this ballad was 
so recently published in the ' Ancient Reliques,' 
Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish 
a poem called " The Hermit,' where the circum- 
stances and catastrophe are exactly the same, 
only with this difference, that the natural sim- 
plicity and tenderness of the original are almost 
entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedi- 
ous paraphrase of the copy, which is as short of 
the merits of Mr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity 
of negus 's to the genuine flavor of champagne. 
w I am, sir, yours, &c, 

" Detector." 

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's con- 



NEWSPAPER ATTACK. 195 

slant persecutor, the malignant Kenri(k, drew 
from him the following note to the editor: — 

" Sir, — As there is nothing I dislike so much 
as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, 
permit me to be as concise as possible in inform 
ing a correspondent of yours that I recommended 
' Blainville's Travels ' because I thought the book 
was a good one ; and I think so still. I said I 
was told by the bookseller that it was then first 
published ; but in that it seems I was misinformed, 
and my reading was not extensive enough to set 
me right. 

"Another correspondent of yours accuses me 
of having taken a ballad I published some time 
ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do 
not think there is any great resemblance between 
the two pieces in question. If there be any, his 
ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. 
Percy some years ago ; and he, as we both con- 
sidered these things as trifles at best, told me, with 
his usual good-humor, the next time I saw him. 
that he had taken my plan to form the fragments 
of Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. lie then 
read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I 
highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these 
are scarcely worth printing; and, were it not for 
the busy disposition of some of your correspond- 
ents, the public should never have known that 
he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am 
obliged to his friendship and learning for commu- 
nications of a much more important nature. 
" I am, sir, yours, &c, 

" Oliver Goldsmith.'* 



196 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The unexpected circulation of the " Vicar of 
"Wakefield" enriched the publisher, but not the 
author. Goldsmith no doubt thought himself en- 
titled to participate in the profits of the repeated 
editions; and a memorandum, still extant, shows 
that he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the 
month of June, for fifteen guineas, but that the bill 
was returned dishonored. He continued, there- 
fore, his usual job-work for the booksellers, writ- 
ing introductions, prefaces, and head- and tail- 
pieces for new works ; revising, touching up, and 
modifying travels and voyages ; making compila- 
tions of prose and poetry, and " building books," as 
he sportively termed it. These tasks required 
little labor or talent, but that taste and touch 
which are the magic of gifted minds. His terms 
began to be proportioned to his celebrity. If his 
price was at any time objected to, " Why, sir," he 
would say, " it may seem large ; but then a man 
may be many years working in obscurity before 
his taste and reputation are fixed or estimated ; 
and then he is, as in other professions, only paid 
for his previous labors." 

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune 
in a different walk of literature from any he had 
yet attempted. We have repeatedly adverted to 
his fondness for the drama; he was a frequent 
attendant at the theatres ; though, as we have 
shown, he considered them under gross misman- 
agement. He thought, too, that a vicious taste 
prevailed among those who wrote for the stage. 
"A new species of dramatic composition," says he, 
in one of his essays, " has been introduced under 



SENTIMENTAL COMEDY. 197 

the name of sentimental comedy, in which the vir- 
tues of private life are exhibited rather than the 
vices exposed ; and the distresses rather than the 
faults of mankind make our interest in the piece. 
In these plays almost all the characters are good, 
and exceedingly generous ; they are lavish enough 
of their tin money on the stage ; and though 
they want humor, have abundance of sentiment 
and feeling. If they happen to have faults or 
foibles, the spectator is taught not only to par- 
don, but to applaud them in consideration of the 
goodness of their hearts ; so that folly, instead of 
being ridiculed, is commended, and the comedy 
aims at touching our passions, without the power 
of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are 
likely to lose one great source of entertainment 
on the stage ; for while the comic poet is invading 
the province of the tragic muse, he leaves her 
lively sister quite neglected. Of this, however, 
he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame 
by his profits 

" Humor at present seems to be departing from 
the stage ; and it will soon happen that our comic 
players will have nothing left for it but a fine coat 
and a song. It depends upon the audience whether 
they will actually drive those poor merry creat- 
ures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as 
at the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art 
when once lost ; and it will be a just punishment, 
that when, by our being too fastidious, we have 
banished humor from the stage, we should our- 
selves be deprived of the art of laughing." 

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently 



198 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

taken place. The comedy of the " Clandestine 
Marriage," the joint production of Colman and 
Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth's inimitable 
pictures of Marriage a la mode, had taken the 
town by storm, crowded the theatre with fashion- 
able audiences, and formed one of the leading lit- 
erary topics of the year. Goldsmith's emulation 
was roused by its success. The comedy was in 
what he considered the legitimate line, totally dif- 
ferent from the sentimental school ; it presented 
pictures of real life, delineations of character and 
touches of humor, in which he felt himself calcu- 
lated to excel. The consequence was, that in the 
course of this year (1766) he commenced a com- 
edy of the same class, to be entitled the " Good 
Natured Man," at which he diligently wrought 
whenever the hurried occupation of " book-l uild 
ing " allowed him leisure. 



CHAPTER XVIH. 




Social Position of Goldsmith ; His Colloquial Contests with 
Johnson. — Anecdotes and Illustrations. 

HE social position of Goldsmith had un- 
dergone a material change since the pub- 
lication of " The Traveller." Before that 
event he was but partially known as the author 
of some clever anonymous writings, and had been 
a tolerated member of the club and the Johnson 
circle, without much being expected from him. 
Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and 
become one of the lions of the day. The highest 
regions of intellectual society were now open to 
him ; but he was not prepared to move in them 
with confidence and success. Ballymahon had not 
been a good school of manners at the outset of 
life ; nor had his experience as a " poor student " 
at colleges and medical schools contributed to give 
him the polish of society. He had brought from 
Ireland, as he said, nothing but his " brogue and 
his blunders," and they had never left him. He 
had travelled, it is true ; but the Continental tour 
which in those days gave the finishing grace to 
the education of a patrician youth, had, with poor 
Goldsmith, been little better than a course of lit- 
erary vagabondizing. It had enriched his mind, 



200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

deepened and widened the benevolence of hig 
heart, and filled his memory with enchanting pic- 
tures, but it had contributed little to disciplining 
him for the polite intercourse of the world. His 
life in London had hitherto been a struggle with 
sordid cares and sad humiliations. " You scarcely 
can conceive," wrote he some time previously 
to his brother, " how much eight years of disap- 
pointment, anguish, and study have worn me 
down." Several more years had since been added 
to the terra during which he had trod the lowly 
walks of life. He had been a tutor, an apothe- 
cary's drudge, a petty physician of the suburbs, a 
bookseller's hack, drudging for daily bread. Each 
separate walk had been beset by its peculiar 
thorns and humiliations. It is wonderful how 
his heart retained its gentleness and kindness 
through all these trials ; how his mind rose above 
the " meannesses of poverty," to which, as he says, 
he was compelled to submit ; but it would be still 
more wonderful, had his manners acquired a tone 
corresponding to the innate grace and refinement 
of his intellect. He was near forty years of age 
when he published "The Traveller," and was 
lifted by it into celebrity. As is beautifully said 
of him by one of his biographers, " he has fought 
his way to consideration and esteem ; but he bears 
upon him the scars of his twelve years' conflict ; 
of the mean sorrows through which he has passed ; 
a?id of the cheap indulgences he has sought relief 
and help from. There is nothing plastic in his 
nature now. His manners and habits are com- 
pletely formed ; and in them any further success 



JOHNSON'S CONVERSATION. 201 

can make little favorable change, whatever it may 
effect for his mind or genius." # 

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at find 
ing him make an awkward figure in the elegant 
drawing-rooms which were now open to him, and 
disappointing those who had formed an idea of 
him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of 
his poetry. 

Even the literary club, and the circle of which 
it formed a part, after their surprise at the intel- 
lectual flights of which he showed himself capable, 
fell into a conventional mode of judging and talk- 
ing of him, and of placing him in absurd and 
whimsical points of view. His very celebrity 
operated here to his disadvantage. It brought 
him into continual comparison with Johnson, who 
was the oracle of that circle and had given it a 
tone. Conversation was the great staple there, 
and of this Johnson was a master. He had been a 
reader and thinker from childhood : his melancholy 
temperament, which unfitted him for the pleasures 
of youth, had made him so. For many years past 
the vast variety of works he had been obliged to 
consult in preparing his Dictionary, had stored an 
uncommonly retentive memory with facts on all 
kinds of subjects ; making it a perfect colloquial 
armory. " He had all his life," says Boswell, 
" habituated himself to consider conversation as a 
trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had dis- 
ciplined himself as a talker as well as a writer, 
making it a rule to impart whatever he knew in 
the most forcible language he could put it in, so 
* Forster's Goldsmith. 



202 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that by constant practice and never suffering any 
careless expression to escape him, he had at- 
tained an extraordinary accuracy and command 
of language." 

His conversation in all companies, according to 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, was such as to secure him 
universal attention, something above the usual 
colloquial style being always expected from him. 

" I do not care," said Orme, the historian of 
Hindostan, " on what subject Johnson talks ; but 
I love better to hear him talk than anybody. 
He either gives you new thoughts or a new color- 
ing." 

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given 
by Dr. Percy. " The conversation of Johnson," 
says he, " is strong and clear, and may be com- 
pared to an antique statue, where every vein and 
muscle is distinct and clear." 

Such was the colloquial giant with which Gold- 
smith's celebrity and his habits of intimacy 
brought him into continual comparison ; can we 
wonder that he should appear to disadvantage ? 
Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious, 
such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was 
to him a severe task, and he never was good at a 
task of any kind. He had not, like Johnson, a 
vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon ; nor a 
retentive memory to furnish them forth when 
wanted. He could not, like the great lexicogra- 
pher, mould his ideas and balance his periods 
while talking. He had a flow of ideas, but it was 
apt to be hurried and confused ; and, as he said of 
kimself, he had contracted a hesitating and disa- 



GOLDSMITH'S CONVERSATION. 203 

greeable manner of speaking. He used to say 
that he always argued best when he argued 
alone ; that is to say, he could master a subject 
in his study, with his pen in his hand ; but when 
he came into company he grew confused, and was 
unable to talk about it. Johnson made a remark 
concerning him to somewhat of the same purport. 
" No man," said he, " is more foolish than Gold- 
smith when he has not a pen in his hand, or more 
wise when he has." Yet with all this conscious 
deficiency he was continually getting involved in 
colloquial contests with Johnson and other prime 
talkers of the literary circle. He felt that he had 
become a notoriety, that he had entered the lists 
and was expected to make fight ; so with that 
heedlessness which characterized him in every- 
thing else he dashed on at a venture, trusting to 
chance in this as in other things, and hoping 
occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson 
perceived his hap-hazard temerity, but gave him 
no credit fbr the real diffidence which lay at bot- 
tom. u The misfortune of Goldsmith in conver- 
sation," said he, " is this, he goes on without know- 
ing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but 
his knowledge is small. As they say of a gener- 
ous man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say 
of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He 
would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, 
on another occasion, he observes: " Goldsmith, 
rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows 
himself to be ignorant, which can only end in ex- 
posing him. If in company with two founders, 
he would fall a-talking on the method of making 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

cannon, though both of them would soon see that 
he did not know what metal a cannon is made 
of." And again : " Goldsmith should not be for- 
ever attempting to shine in conversation ; he has 
not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he 
fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of 
skill, partly of chance ; a man may be beat at times 
by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. 
Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, 
is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot 
spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's 
while. A man should not lay a hundred to one 
unless he can easily spare it, though he has a 
hundred chances for him ; he can get but a guinea, 
and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this 
state. When he contends, if he gets the better, 
it is a very little addition to a man of his literary 
reputation ; if he does not get the better, he is 
miserably vexed." 

Johnson was not aware how much he was 
himself to blame in producing this vexation. 
" Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, " always ap- 
peared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly 
when in company with people of any conse- 
quence ; always as if impressed with fear of dis- 
grace ; and indeed well he might. I have been 
witness to many mortifications he has suffered in 
Dr. Johnson's company." 

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, 
but rudeness. The great lexicographer, spoiled 
by the homage of society, was still more prone 
than himself to lose temper when the argument 
went against him. He could not brook appearing 



FABLE OF THE LITTLE FISHES. 205 

to be worsted, but would attempt to bear down 
his adversary by the rolling thunder of his peri- 
ods, and, when that failed, would become down- 
right insulting. Boswell called it " having re- 
course to some sudden mode of robust sophistry " ; 
but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. 
" There is no arguing with Johnson," said he, 
"for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you 
down with the hut-end of it." # 

In several of the intellectual collisions re- 
corded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, 
it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the 
best both of the wit and the argument, and es- 
pecially of the courtesy and good-nature. 

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a 
capital reproof as. to his own colloquial peculiari- 
ties. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that 
the animals introduced in them seldom talked in 
character. " For instance," said he, " the fable 
of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their 
heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to 
oe changed into birds. The skill consists in 
making them talk like little fishes." Just then 
observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides 
and laughing, he immediately added, ." Why, Dr. 
Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think ; 
for, if you were to make little fishes talk, they 
would talk like whales." 

* The following is given ty Boswell, as an instance of ro- 
bust sophistry: — " Once, when I was pressing upon him with 
visible advantage, he stopped me thus — ' My dear Boswell, 
let 's have no more of this ; you '11 make nothing of it ; I 'd 
rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune.' " 



206 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent morti- 
fications in society from the overbearing, and 
sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always 
did justice to his benevolence. When royal pen- 
sions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Sheb- 
beare, a punster remarked, that the king had 
pensioned a she-bear and a he-bear ; to which 
Goldsmith replied, " Johnson, to be sure, has a 
roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a 
more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear 
but the skin." 

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when 
he least thought of shining ; when he gave up all 
effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with 
the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave 
way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell 
could perceive his merits on these occasions. 
" For my part," said he, condescendingly, " I like 
very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away 
carelessly ; " and many a much wiser man than 
Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fer- 
tile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy" 
moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and 
buoyant good-humor, that led to a thousand 
amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, 
much to the entertainment of his intimates ; yet 
in his most thoughtless garrulity there was occa- 
6ionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of 
Aiq diamond. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Social Resorts. — The Shilling Whist-Club. — A Practical 
Joke. — The Wednesday Club. — The " Tun of Man." — 
The Pig-Butoher. — Tom King. — Hugh Kelly. — Glover 
and his Characteristics. 



JS^-jgg? HOUGH Goldsmith's pride and ambition 
*y3\ %m led him to mingle occasionally with high 
feljvi! society, and to engage in the colloquial 
conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he 
was ill at ease and conscious of being underval- 
ued, yet he had some social resorts in which he 
indemnified himself for their restraints by indul- 
ging his humor without control. One of them 
was a shilling whist-club, which held its meetings 
at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place 
rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there 
in old times, to which " rare Ben Jonson " had 
furnished the rules. The company was of a 
familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that 
very questionable wit which consists in playing 
off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of 
these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to 
the club one night in a hackney-coach, he gave 
the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a 
shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for 
there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of 
this class would have the honesty to return the 
14 



208 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

money. On the next club-evening he was told a 
person at the street-door wished to speak with 
him. He went forth, but soon returned with a 
radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight 
the coachman had actually brought back the 
guinea. While he launched forth in praise of 
this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it 
ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small 
sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it 
largely from his own purse, he dismissed the 
Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. 
He was still chanting his praises, when one of 
the club requested a sight of the guinea thus 
honestly returned. To Goldsmith's confusion it 
proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst 
of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by 
which he was assailed on every side, showed him 
that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended 
coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. 
He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon 
beat a retreat for the evening. 

Another of those free and easy clubs met on 
Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern in 
Fleet Street. It was somewhat in the style of 
the Three Jolly Pigeons : songs, jokes, dramatic 
imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of 
humor, formed a contrast to the sententious mo- 
rality, pedantic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of 
the learned circle. Here a huge " tun of man," 
by the name of Gordon, used to delight Gold- 
smith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham 
Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a 
wealthy pig-butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the 



HUGH KELL T. — GLO VER. 209 

mild philanthropy of " The Traveller," aspired to 
be on the most sociable footing with the author ; 
find here was Tom King, the comedian, recently 
risen to consequence by his performance of Lord 
Ogleby in the new comedy of " The Clandestine 
Marriage." 

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly 
a second-rate author, who, as he became a kind 
of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular 
mention. He was an Irishman, about twenty 
eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a 
staymaker in Dublin ; then writer to a London 
attorney ; then a Grub-Street hack ; scribbling 
for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had 
set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and in a 
paper called " Thespis," in emulation of Churchill's 
" Rosciad," had harassed many of the poor actors 
without mercy, and often without wit ; but had 
lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in conse- 
quence, took him into favor. He was the author 
of several works of superficial merit, but which 
had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, 
however, must have been mortified on his first 
introduction to Johnson ; after sitting a short 
time he got up to take leave, expressing a. fear 
that a longer visit mio-ht be troublesome. " Not 
in the least, sir," said the surly moralist, '* 1 had 
forgotten you were in the room." Johnson used 
to speak of him as a man who had written more 
than he had read. 

A prime wag of this club was one of Gold- 
bmith's poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the 
name of Glover. He had originally been edu- 



210 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

eared for the medical profession, but had taken in 
early life to the stage, *hough apparently without 
much success. While performing at Cork, he 
undertook, partly in jest, to restore life to the 
body of a malefactor, who had just been executed. 
To the astonishment of every one, himself among 
the number, he succeeded. The miracle took 
wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed the wig 
and cane, and considered his fortune as- secure. 
Unluckily, there were not many dead people to 
be restored to life in Ireland ; his practice did not 
equal his expectation, so he came to London, 
where he continued to dabble indifferently, and 
rather unprofitably, in physic and literature. 

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and 
Devil taverns, where he used to amuse the com- 
pany by his talent at story-telling and his powers 
of mimicry, giving capital imitations of Garrick, 
Foote, Coleman, Sterne, and other public charac- 
ters of the day. He seldom happened to have 
money enough to pay his reckoning, but was 
always sure to find some ready purse among 
those who had been amused by his humors. 
Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. 
It was through him that Glover was admitted to 
the Wednesday Club, of which his theatrical 
imitations became the delight. Glover, however, 
was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, 
which appeared to him to suffer from the over- 
familiarity of some of the members of the club. 
He was especially shocked by the free and easy 
tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the 
[>ip;-hutcher. " Come, Noll," would he say, as he 



THE SOCIAL PIG-BUT CEER. 211 

pledged him, "here's my service to you, old 
boy ! " 

Glover whispered to Goldsmith, that he 
" should not allow such liberties." " Let him 
alone," was the reply, " you '11 see how civilly I '11 
let him down." After a time, he called out, with 
marked ceremony and politeness, " Mr. B., I have 
the honor of drinking your good health." Alas ) 
dignity was not poor Goldsmith's forte : he could 
keep no one at a distance. " Thank'ee, thank'ee. 
Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the 
pipe out of his mouth. " I don't see the effect 
of your reproof," -whispered Glover. " I give it 
up," replied Goldsmith, with a good-humored 
shrug ; " I ought to have known before now there 
is no putting a pig in the right way." 

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for 
mingling in these motley circles, observing, that, 
having been originally poor, he had contracted a 
love for low company. Goldsmith, however, was 
guided not by a taste for what was low. but for 
what was comic and characteristic, it was the 
feeling of the artist ; the feeling which furnished 
out some of his best scenes in familiar life ; the 
feeling with which " rare Ben Jonson " sought 
these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to 
study " Every Man in his Humor." 

It was not always, however,, that the humor 
of these associates was to his taste : as they be- 
came boisterous in their merriment, he was apt to 
oecome depressed. " The company of fools," says 
he, in one of his essays, " may at first make us 
smile, but at last never fails of making us nccl- 



212 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ancholy." " Often lie would become moody," says 
Glover, " and would leave the party abruptly to 
go home and brood over his misfortune." 

It is possible, however, that he went home for 
quite a different purpose : to commit to paper 
some scene or passage suggested for his comedy 
of " The Good-natured Man." The elaboration 
of humor is often a most serious task ; and we 
have never witnessed a more perfect picture of 
mental misery than was once presented to us by 
a popular dramatic writer — still, we hope, living 
— whom we found in the agonies of producing a 
farce which subsequently set the theatres in a 
roar. 




CHAPTER XX. 

rhe Great Cham of Literature and the King. — Scene at Sir 
Joshua Reynolds's. — Goldsmith accused of Jealousy. — 
Negotiations with Garrick. — The Author and the Actor; 
Their Correspondence. 

^-^HE comedy of " The Good-natured Man " 
§8 Wk was com P lete( i ^ Goldsmith early in 
^J.^2 1767, and submitted to the perusal of 
Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the lit- 
erary club, by whom it was heartily approved. 
Johnson, who was seldom half-way either in cen- 
sure or applause, pronounced it the best comedy 
that had been written since " The Provoked Hus- 
band," and promised to furnish the prologue. 
This immediately became an object of great so- 
licitude with Goldsmith, knowing the weight an 
introduction from the Great Cham of literature 
would have with the public ; but circumstances 
occurred which he feared might drive the comedy 
and the prologue from Johnson's thoughts. The 
latter was in the habit of visiting the royal li- 
brary at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a no- 
ble collection of books, in the formation of which 
he had assisted the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with 
his advice. One evening, as he was seated there 
by the fire reading, he was surprised by the en- 
trance of the King (George III.), then a young 



214 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

man, who sought this occasion to have a conver- 
sation with him. The conversation was varied 
and discursive, the King shifting from subject 
to subject according to- his wont. "During the 
whole interview," says Boswell, " Johnson talked 
to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in 
his open, manly manner, with a sonorous voice, 
and never in that subdued tone which is com 
monlyused at the levee and in the drawing-room. 
'I found his Majesty wished I should talk,' said 
he, ' and I made it my business to talk. I find it 
does a man good to be talked to by his sovereign. 
In the first place, a man cannot be In a pas- 
sion.' " It would have been well for Johnson's col 
ioquial disputants, could he have often been under 
such decorous restraint. Profoundly monarchical 
in his principles, he retired from the interview 
highly gratified with the conversation of the King 
and with his gracious behavior. " Sir," said he 
to the librarian, " they may talk of the King as 
they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have 
ever seen." — " Sir," said he subsequently to Ben- 
net Langton, " his manners are those of as fine a 
gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Four- 
teenth or Charles the Second." 

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the 
reflex of royalty, he was holding forth one day to 
a listening group at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who 
were anxious to hear every particular of this 
memorable conversation. Among other questions, 
the King had asked him whether he was writing 
anything. His reply was, that he thought he 
had already done his part as a writer. " I should 



BOSWELL AT FAULT. 215 

have thought so too," said the King, " if you had 
not written so well." — " No man," said Johnson, 
commenting on this speech, " could have made a 
handsomer compliment ; and it was fit for a King 
to pay. It was decisive." — " But did you make 
no reply to this high compliment ? " asked one 
of the company. " No, sir," replied the pro- 
foundly deferential Johnson ; " when the King had 
said it, it was to be, so. It was not for me to 
bandy civilities with my sovereign." 

During all the time that Johnson was thus 
holding forth, Goldsmith, who was present, ap- 
pearing to take no interest in the royal theme, 
but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, in a 
moody fit of abstraction ; at length recollecting 
himself, he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, 
with what Boswell calls his usual " frankness and 
simplicity," — " Well, you acquitted yourself in this 
conversation better than I should have done, for I 
should have bowed and stammered through the 
whole of it." He afterwards explained his seem- 
ing inattention by saying that his mind was com- 
pletely occupied about his play, and by fears lest 
Johnson, in his present state of royal excitement, 
would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue. 

How natural and truthful is this explanation. 
Yet Boswell presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's 
inattention affected, and attributes it to jealousy. 
* It was strongly suspected," says he, " that he 
was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singu- 
lar honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It 
needed the littleness of mind of Boswell to as- 
sribe such pitiful motives to Goldsmith, and to 



216 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

entertain such exaggerated notions of the honor 
paid to Dr. Johnson. 

" The Good-natured Man " was now ready fox 
performance, but the question was, how to get it 
upon the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, 
for which it had been intended, were thrown into 
confusion by the recent death of Rich, the man- 
ager. Drury Lane was under the management of 
Garrick ; but a feud, it will be recollected, existed 
between him and the poet, from the animadver- 
sions of the latter on the mismanagement of the- 
atrical affairs, and the refusal of the former to 
give the poet his vote for the secretaryship of the 
Society of Arts. Times, however, were changed. 
Goldsmith, when that feud took place, was an 
anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and 
of no circulation in society. Now he had become 
a literary lion ; he was a member of the Literary 
Club ; he was the associate of Johnson, Burke, 
Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates, — in a 
word, he had risen to consequence in the public 
eye, and of course was of consequence in the 
eyes of David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds 
saw the lurking scruples of pride existing be- 
tween the author and actor, and thinking it a pity 
that two men of such congenial talents, and who 
might be so serviceable to each other, should be 
kept asunder by a worn-out pique, exerted his 
friendly offices to bring them together. The 
meeting took place in Reynolds's house in Leices- 
ter Square. Garrick, however, could not entirely 
put off the mock majesty of the stage ; he meant 
to be civil, but he was rather too gracious and 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH GARR1CK. 217 

condescending. Tom Davies, in his "Life of 
Garrick," gives an amusing picture of the coming 
together of these punctilious parties. " The 
manager," says he, " was fully conscious of his 
(Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more ostenta- 
tious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author 
than became a man of his prudence ; Goldsmith 
was, on his side, as fully persuaded of his own 
importance and independent greatness. Mr. 
Garrick, who had so long been treated with the 
complimentary language paid to a successful pat- 
entee and admired actor, expected that the writer 
would esteem the patronage of his play a favor ; 
Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a bar- 
gain that was intended to be of mutual advantage 
to both parties, and in this he was certainly justi- 
fiable ; Mr. Garrick could reasonably expect no 
thanks for the acting a new play, which he would 
have rejected if he had not been convinced it 
would have amply rewarded his pains and ex- 
pense. I believe the manager was willing to ac- 
cept the play, but he wished to be courted to it ; 
and the Doctor was not disposed to purchase his 
friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." 
They separated, however, with an understanding 
on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be 
acted. The conduct of Garrick subsequently 
proved evasive, not through any lingerings of past 
hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters 
of the kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. 
He did not think the piece likely to succeed on 
the stage, and avowed that opinion to Reynold 
and Johnson, — but hesitated to say as much to 



218 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. 
A further misunderstanding was the result of this 
want of decision and frankness ; repeated inter- 
views and some correspondence took place with- 
out bringing matters to a point, and in the mean 
time the theatrical season passed away. 

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suf- 
fered grievously by this delay, and he considered 
himself entitled to call upon the manager, who 
still talked of acting the play, to advance him 
forty pounds upon a note of the younger New- 
bery. Garrick readily complied, but subsequently 
suggested certain important alterations in the 
comedy as indispensable to its success ; these 
were indignantly rejected by the author, but per- 
tinaciously insisted on by the manager. Garrick 
proposed to leave the matter to the arbitration of 
Whitehead, the laureate, who officiated as his 
" reader " and elbow-critic. Goldsmith was more 
indignant than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, 
which was only calmed by the interference of 
Burke and Reynolds. 

Just at this time, order came out of confusion 
in the affairs of Covent Garden. A pique having 
risen between Colman and Garrick, in the course 
of their joint authorship of "The Clandestine 
Marriage," the former had become manager and 
part-proprietor of Covent Garden, and was pre- 
paring to open a powerful competition with his 
former colleague. On hearing of this, Goldsmith 
made overtures to Colman ; who, without wait- 
ing (o consult his fellow-proprietors, who were 
absent, gave instantly a favorable reply. Gold- 



LETTER TO GaRRICK. 219 

smith felt the contrast of this warm, encouraging 
conduct, to the chilling delays and objections of 
Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the 
discretion of Colman. " Dear sir," says he, in a 
Letter dated Temple Garden Court, July 9th, " I 
am very much obliged to you for your kind par- 
tiality in my favor, and your tenderness in shorten- 
ing the interval of my expectation. That the 
play is liable to many objections I well know, but 
I am happy that it is in hands the most capable 
in the world of removing them. If then, dear 
sir, you will complete your favor by putting the 
piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of 
directing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a 
sense of your goodness to me. And indeed, 
though most probably this be the last I shall ever 
write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction 
that poets for the future are likely to have a pro- 
tector who declines taking advantage of their 
dreadful situation — and scorns that importance 
which may be acquired by trifling with their 
anxieties." 

The next clay Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, 
who was at Litchfield, informing him of his hav- 
ing transferred his piece to Covent Garden, for 
which it had been originally written, and by the 
patentee of which it was claimed, observing, " As 
I found you had very great difficulties about that 

piece, I complied with his desire I am 

extremely sorry that you should think me warm 
ut our last meeting ; your judgment certainly 
ought to be free, especially in a matter which 
must in some measure concern your own credit 



220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and interest. I assure you, sir, I have no disposi- 
tion to differ with you on this or any other ac- 
count, but am, with an high opinion of your abili- 
ties, and a very real esteem, sir, your most obe- 
dient humble servant. Oliver Goldsmith." 

In his reply, Garrick observed, " I was, indeed, 
much hurt that your warmth at our last meeting 
mistook my sincere and friendly attention to your 
play for the remains of a former misunderstand- 
ing, which I had as much forgot as if it had never 
existed. What I said to you at my own house I 
now repeat, that I felt more pain in giving my 
sentiments than you possibly would 'in receiving 
them. It has been the business, and ever will 
be, of my life to live on the best terms with men 
of genius ; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will 
have no reason to change his previous friendly 
disposition towards me, as I shall be glad of every 
future opportunity to convince him how much I 
am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. 
Garr'ick." 





CHAPTER XXI. 

More Hack-Authorship. — Tom Davies and the Roman TTis- 
tory. — Canonbury Castle. — Political Authorship. — Pe- 
cuniary Temptation. — Death of N ewbery the Elder. 

'HOUGH Goldsmith's comedy was now 
in train to be performed, it could not be 
brought out before Christmas ; in the 
mean time he must live. Again, therefore, he had 
to resort to literary jobs for his daily support. 
These obtained for him petty occasional sums, the 
largest of which was ten pounds, from the elder 
Newbery, for an historical compilation ; but this 
scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its 
products, was likely soon to cease ; Newbery 
being too ill to attend to -business, and having to 
transfer the whole management of it to his 
nephew. 

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Ros- 
cius, sometime bibliopole, stepped forward to 
Goldsmith's relief, and proposed that he should 
undertake an easy popular history of Rome in 
two volumes. An arrangement was soon made, 
Goldsmith undertook to complete it in two years, 
if possible, for two hundred and fifty guineas, and 
forthwith set about his task with cheerful alac- 
rity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during 
the summer months, where he might alternate his 



222 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

literary labors with strolls about the green fields. 
" Merry Islington " was again his resort, but he 
now aspired to better quarters than formerly, and 
engaged the chambers occupied occasionally by 
Mr. Newbery, in Canonbury House, or Castle, as 
it is popularly called. This had been a hunting- 
lodge of Queen Elizabeth, in whose time it was 
surrounded by parks and forests. In Goldsmith's 
day, nothing remained of it but an old brick 
tower; it was still in the country amid rural 
scenery, and was a favorite nestling-place of 
authors, publishers, and others of the literary 
order.* A number of 'these he had for fellow- 
occupants of the castle ; and they formed a tem- 
porary club, which held its meetings at the 
Crown Tavern, on the Islington lower road ; and 
here he presided in his own genial style, and was 
the life and delight of the company. 

The writer of these pages visited old Canon- 
bury Castle some years since, out of regard to 
the memory of Goldsmith. The apartment was 
still shown which the poet had inhabited, consist- 
ing of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with 
panelled wainscots and Gothic windows. The 

* »See on the distant slope, majestic shows 
Old Canonhury's tower, an ancient pile 
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns 
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd ; 
Thither, in latter days, hath genius fled 
From yonder city, to respire and die. 
There tke sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned 
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. 
There learned Chambers treasured lore for men, 
And Newbery there his A-B-C's for babes. 



PECUNIARY TEMPTATION. 223 

quaintness and quietude of the place were still 
attractive. It was one of the resorts of citizens 
on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the 
top of the tower and amuse themselves with rec- 
onnoitring the city through a telescope. Not far 
from this tower were the gardens of the White 
Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium, where 
Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of 
his fortune. In the first edition of his Essays he 
speaks of a stroll in these gardens, where he at 
that time, no doubt, thought himself in perfectly 
genteel society. After his rise in the world, 
however, he became too knowing to speak of such 
plebeian haunts. In a new edition of his Essays, 
therefore, the White Conduit House and its gar- 
den disappears, and he speaks of " a stroll in the 
Park." 

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand 
to mouth by the forced drudgery of the pen, his 
independence of spirit was subjected to a sore 
pecuniary trial. It was the opening of Lord 
North's ad ministration j a time of great political 
excitement. The public mind was agitated by 
the question of American taxation, and other 
questions of like irritating tendency. Junius and 
Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking 
the administration with all their force ; Grub 
Street was stirred up to its lowest depths ; in- 
flammatory talent of all kinds was in full activity, 
and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, 
lampoons, and libels of the grossest kinds. The 
ministry were looking anxiously round for liter- 
ary support. It was thought that the pen of 
15 



224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hospi- 
table friend and countryman, Robert Nugent, 
politically known as Squire Gawky, had come 
out strenuously for colonial taxation ; had been 
selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and 
raised to the rank of Baron Nugent and Vis- 
count Clare. His example, it was thought, would 
be enough of itself to bring Goldsmith into the 
ministerial ranks ; and then what writer of the 
day was proof against a full purse or a pension ? 
Accordingly one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord 
Sandwich, and author of " Anti Sejanus Panurge," 
and other political libels in support of the admin- 
istration, was sent to negotiate with the poet, who 
at this time was returned to town. Dr. Scott, in 
after-years, when his political subserviency had 
been rewarded by two fat crown-livings, used to 
make what he considered a good story out of 
this embassy to the poet. " I found him," said 
he, " in a miserable suit of chambers in the Tem- 
ple. I told him my authority : I told how I was 
empowered to pay most liberally for his exer- 
tions ; and, would you believe it ! he was so ab- 
surd as to say, ' I can earn as much as will supply 
my wants without writing for any party ; the 
nssistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to 
me ; ' — and so I left him in his garret ! " AVI to 
does not admire the sturdy independence of poor 
Goldsmith toiling in his garret for nine guineas 
the job, and smile with contempt at the indignant 
wonder of the political divine, albeit his subser- 
viency was repaid by two fat crown-livings ? 
Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old 



DEATH OF NEWBERT. 225 

friend, though frugal-handed employer, Newbery, 
of picture-book renown, closed his mortal ca- 
reer. The poet has celebrated him as the friend 
of all mankind ; he certainly lost nothing by his 
friendship. He coined the brains of his authors 
in the times of their exigency, and made them 
pay dear for the plank put out to keep them from 
drowning. It is not likely his death caused much 
lamentation among the scribbling tribe ; we may 
express decent respect for the memory of the 
just, but we shed tears only at the grave of the 
generous. 





CHAPTER XXII. 

Theatrical Manoeuvring. — The Comedy of" False Delicacy." 
First Performance of " The Good-natured Man." — Con- 
duct of Johnson. — Conduct of the Author. — Intermed- 
dling of the Press. 

! HE comedy of " The Good - natured 
Man " was doomed to experience delays 
and difficulties to the very last. Gar- 
rick, notwithstanding his professions, had still a 
lurking grudge against the author, and tasked his 
managerial arts to thwart him in his theatrical 
enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to 
build up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon compan- 
ion of the Wednesday club, as a kind of rival. 
Kelly had written a comedy called " False Deli- 
cacy," in which were embodied all the meretri- 
cious qualities of the sentimental school. Gar- 
rick, though he had decried that school, and had 
brought out his comedy of " The Clandestine 
Marriage " in opposition to it, now lauded " False 
Delicacy " to the skies, and prepared to bring it 
out at Drury Lane with all possible stage- effect. 
He even went so far as to write a prologue and 
epilogue for it, and to touch up some parts of the 
dialogue. He had become reconciled to his for- 
mer colleague, Colman, and it is intimated that 
jne condition in tfie treaty of peace between 



THEATFTCAL MANCEUVRING. 227 

these potentates of the realms of pasteboard 
(equally prone to play into each other's hands 
with the confederate potentates on the great 
theatre of life) was, that Goldsmith's play should 
be kept back until Kelly's had been brought for- 
ward. 

In the mean time the poor author, little dream- 
ing; of the deleterious influence at work behind the 
scenes, saw the appointed time arrive and pass by 
without the performance of his play ; while " False 
Delicacy " was brought out at Drury Lane (Janu- 
ary 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial 
management. Houses were packed to applaud it 
to the echo ; the newspapers vied with each other 
in their venal praises, and night after night seemed 
to give it a fresh triumph. 

While " False Delicacy " was thus borne on 
the full tide of fictitious prosperity, " The Good- 
natured Man" was creeping through the last 
rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the 
rival piece threw a damp upon author, manager, 
and actors. Goldsmith went about with a face 
full of anxiety ; Column's hopes in the piece de- 
clined at each rehearsal ; as to his fellow-pro- 
prietors, they declared they had never entertained 
any. All the actors were discontented with their 
parts, excepting Ned Shuter, an excellent low 
comedian, and a pretty actress named Miss Wal- 
Ibrd ; both of whom the poor author ever after 
ward held in grateful recollection. 

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and un- 
sparing castigator in times of heedless levity, stood 
by him at present with that protecting kindness 



228 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

with which he ever befriended him in time of 
need. He attended the rehearsals ; he furnished 
the prologue according to promise ; he pish'd and 
pshaw'd at any doubts and fears on the part of the 
author, but gave him sound counsel, and held him 
up with a steadfast and manly hand. Inspirited by 
his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, 
and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unu- 
sual care. Ever since his elevation into the polite 
world, he had improved in his wardrobe and toi- 
let. Johnson could no longer accuse him of being 
shabby in his appearance ; he rather went to the 
other extreme. On the present occasion there is 
an entry in the books of his tailor, Mr. William 
Filby, of a suit of " Tyrian bloom, satin grain, 
and garter blue silk breeches, £8 2s. 7d." Thus 
magnificently attired, he attended the theatre and 
watched the reception of the play, and the effect 
of each individual scene, with that vicissitude of 
feeling incident to his mercurial nature. 

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and 
being delivered by Brinsley in lugubrious tones 
suited to the ghost in " Hamlet," seemed to throw 
a portentous gloom on the audience. Some of the 
scenes met with great applause, and at such times 
Goldsmith was highly elated ; others went off 
coldly, or there were slight tokens of disapproba- 
tion, and then his spirits would sink. The fourth 
act saved the piece ; for Shuter, who had the 
main comic character of Croaker, was so varied 
and ludicrous in his execution of the scene in 
which he reads an incendiary letter, that he drew 
down thunders of applause. On his coming behind 



ODD CONFESSIONS. 229 

ihe scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an over- 
flowing heart ; declaring that he exceeded his own 
idea of the character, and made it almost as new 
to him as to any of the audience. 

On the whole, however, both the author and his 
friends were disappointed at the reception of the 
piece, and considered it a failure. Poor Goldsmith 
left the theatre with his towering hopes completely 
cut down. He endeavored to hide his mortifica- 
tion, and even to assume an air of unconcern while 
among his associates ; but the moment he was 
alone with Dr. Johnson, in whose rough but mag- 
nanimous nature he reposed unlimited confidence, 
he threw off all restraint and gave way to an 
almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had 
shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, 
saw nothing in the partial disappointment of over- 
rated expectations to warrant such ungoverned 
emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he 
termed a silly affectation, saying that " No man 
should be expected to sympathize with the sor- 
rows of vanity." 

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, 
he, with his usual unreserve, made his past distress 
a subject of amusement to his friends. Dining 
one day, in company with Dr. Johnson, at the chap- 
lain's table at St. James's Palace, he entertained 
the company with a particular and comic account 
of all his feelings on the night of representation, 
pid his despair when the piece was hissed. How 
Ue went, he said, to the Literary Club ; chatted 
gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss , and, to give 
a greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite 



230 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

song about an old woman tossed in a blanket sev- 

enteen times as high as the moon "All 

this while," added he, " I was suffering horrid tor- 
tures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily 
believe it would have strangled me on the spot, I 
was so excessively ill ; but I made more noise 
than usual to cover all that ; so they never per- 
ceived my not eating, nor suspected the anguish 
of my heart; but when all were gone except 
Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even 
swore that I would never write again." 

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness 
and childlike self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. 
When the latter had come to a pause, " All this, 
Doctor," said he, dryly, "I thought had been a 
secret between you and me, and I am sure I 
would not have said anything about it for the 
world." But Goldsmith had no secrets : his fol- 
lies, his weaknesses, his errors were all thrown to 
the surface ; his heart was really too guileless and 
innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It 
is too often the false, designing man that is 
guarded hi his conduct and never offends propri- 
eties. 

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who 
thus in conversation could keep nothing to himself, 
should be the author of a maxim which would 
inculcate the. most thorough dissimulation. " Men 
of the world," says he in one of the papers of the 
" Bee," " maintain that the true end of speech is 
not so much to express our wants as to conceal 
them." How often is this quoted as one of the 
subtle remarks of the fine-witted Talleyrand ! 



INTERMEDDLING OF THE PRESS. 231 

" The Good-natured Man " was performed for 
ten nights in succession ; the third, sixth, and ninth 
nights were for the author's benefit ; the fifth night 
it was commanded by their Majesties ; after this 
it was played occasionally, but rarely, having 
always pleased more in the closet than on the 
stage. 

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it 
entirely devoid of character, and it has long since 
passed into oblivion. Yet it is an instance how an 
inferior production, by dint of puffing and trump- 
eting, may be kept up for a time on the sur- 
face of popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. 
What had been done for " False Delicacy " on the 
stage was continued by the press. The booksell- 
ers vied with the manager in launching it upon 
the town. They announced that the first impres- 
sion of three thousand copies was exhausted before 
two o'clock on the day of publication ; four edi- 
tions, amounting to ten thousand copies, were sold 
in the course of the season ; a public breakfast 
was given to Kelly at the Chapter CofFee-House, 
and a piece of plate presented to him by the pub- 
lishers. The comparative merits of the two plays 
were continually subjects of discussion in green- 
rooms, coffee-houses, and other places where the- 
atrical questions were discussed. 

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that " viper 
of the press," endeavored on this, as on many 
other occasions, to detract from his well-earned 
fame ; the poet was excessively sensitive to these 
attacks, and had not the art and self-command to 
conceal his feelings. 



232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated 
that Kelly had seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's 
play, while in the hands of Garrick or elsewhere, 
and had borrowed some of the situations and sen- 
timents. Some of the wags of the day took a 
mischievous pleasure in stirring up a feud be- 
tween the two authors. Goldsmith became net- 
tled, though he could scarcely be deemed jealous 
of one so far his inferior. He spoke dispar- 
agingly, though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's 
play : the latter retorted. Still, when they met 
one day behind the scenes of Covent Garden, 
Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congrat- 
ulated Kelly on his success. " If I thought you 
sincere, Mr. Goldsmith," replied the other, 
abruptly, " I should thank you." Goldsmith was 
not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon 
laughed at this unworthy rivalship ; but the 
jealousy and envy awakened in Kelly's mind 
loner continued. He is even accused of having 
given vent to his hostility by anonymous attacks 
in the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly 
and malignant spirits ; but of this there is no 
positive proof. 





CHAPTER XXHI. 

Burning the Candle at both Ends. — Fine Apartments.-- 
Fine Furniture. — Fine Clothes. — Fine Acquaintances. — 
Shoemaker's Holiday and Jolly - Pigeon Associates. — 
Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hampstead Hoax. — Poor 
Friends among great Acquaintances. 

HE profits resulting from " The Good- 
natured Man" were beyond any that 
Goldsmith had yet derived from his 
works. He netted about four hundred pounds 
from the theatre, and one hundred pounds from 
his publisher. 

Five hundred pounds ! and all at one miracu- 
lous draught ! It appeared to him wealth inex- 
haustible. It at once opened his heart and hand, 
and led him into all kinds of extravagance. The 
first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for 
a box-ticket for his benefit, when " The Good- 
natured Man " was to be performed. The next 
was an entire change in his domicil. The shabby 
lodgings with Jeffs, the butler, in which he had 
been worried by Johnson's scrutiny, were now 
exchanged for chambers more becoming a man 
of his ample fortune. The apartments consisted 
of three rooms on the second floor of No. 2 Brick 
Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascend- 
ing the staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous 



234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

walks of the Temple garden. The lease ne pur 
chased for £400, and then went on to furnish his 
rooms with mahogany sofas, card - tables, and 
bookcases ; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton 
carpets. His awkward little person was also 
furnished out in a style befitting his apartment; 
for, in addition to his suit of " Tyrian bloom, 
satin grain," we find another charged about this 
time, in the books of Mr. Filby, in no less gor- 
geous terms, being " lined with silk and furnished 
with gold buttons." Thus lodged and thus ar- 
rayed, he invited the visits of his most aristocratic 
acquaintances, and no longer quailed beneath the 
courtly eye of Beauclerc. He gave dinners to 
Johnson, Reynolds, Percy, BickerstaiT, and other 
friends of note ; and supper-parties to young 
folks of both sexes. These last were preceded 
by round games of cards, at which there was 
more laughter than skill, and in which the sport 
was to cheat each other ; or by romping games 
of forfeits and blind-man's-buff, at which he en- 
acted the lord of misrule. Blackstone, whose 
chambers were immediately below, and who was 
studiously occupied on his " Commentaries," used 
to complain of the racket made overhead by his 
revelling neighbor. 

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rura) 
party, composed of four or five of his "jolly- 
pigeon " friends, to enjoy what he humorously 
called a " shoemaker's holiday." These would 
assemble at his chambers in the morning, to par- 
rake of a plentiful and rather expensive break - 
Gist; the remains of which, with his customary 



SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY. 235 

benevolence, he generally gave to some poor 
woman in attendance. The repast ended, the 
party would set out on foot, in high spirits, 
making extensive rambles by foot-paths and 
green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth, Chelsea, 
Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleas- 
ant resort, within a few miles of London. A 
simple but gay and heartily relished dinner, at a 
country inn, crowned the excursion. In the 
evening they strolled back to town, all the better 
in health and spirits for a day spent in rural and 
social enjoyment. Occasionally, when extrava- 
gantly inclined, they adjourned from dinner to 
drink tea at the White Conduit House ; and, 
now and then, concluded their festive day by 
supping at the Grecian or Temple Exchange 
Coffee-Houses, or at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet 
Street. The whole expenses of the day never 
exceeded a crown, and were oftener from three 
and sixpence to four shillings ; for the best part 
of their entertainment, sweet air and rural scenes, 
excellent exercise and joyous conversation, cost 
nothing. 

One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on 
these excursions, was his occasional amanuensis, 
Peter Barlow, whose quaint peculiarities afforded 
much amusement to the company. Peter was 
poor but punctilious, squaring his expenses ac- 
cording to his means. He always wore the same 
garb ; fixed his regular expenditure for dinner at 
a trifling sum, which, if left to himself, he never 
Exceeded, but which he always insisted on pay- 
ing. His oddities always made him a welcome 



23 G OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

companion on the " shoemaker's holidays." The 
dinner, on these occasions, generally exceeded 
considerably his tariff; he put down, however, 
no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith 
made up the difference. 

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on 
such occasions, he was content to " pay the shot," 
was his countryman Glover, of whom mention 
has already been made as one of the wags and 
sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a 
prime mimic at the Wednesday Club. 

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a 
whimsical story of one of his practical jokes upon 
Goldsmith, in the course of a rural excursion in 
the vicinity of London. They had dined at an inn 
on Hampstead Heights, and were descending the 
hill, when, in passing a cottage, they saw through 
the open window a party at tea. Goldsmith, who 
was fatigued, cast a wistful glance at the cheerful 
tea-table. "How. I should like to be of that 
party," exclaimed he. " Nothing more easy," re- 
plied Glover ; " allow me to introduce you." So 
saying, he entered the house with an air of tho 
most perfect familiarity, though an utter stranger, 
and was followed by the unsuspecting Goldsmith, 
who supposed, of course, that he was a friend 
of the family. The owner of the house rose on 
the entrance of the strangers. The undaunted 
Glover shook hands with him in the most cordial 
manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the com- 
pany who had a peculiarly good-natured physiog- 
nomy, muttered something like a recognition, and 
forthwith launched into an amusing story, in« 



THE H AMP STEAD HOAX. 237 

vented at the moment, of something which he 
pretended had occurred upon the road. The host 
supposed the new-comers were friends of his 
guests ; the guests, that they were friends of the 
host. Glover did not give them time to find out 
the truth. He followed one droll story with 
another ; brought his powers of mimicry into 
play, and kept the company in a roar. Tea was 
offered and accepted ; an hour went off in the 
most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of 
which Glover bowed himself and his companion 
out of the house with many facetious last words, 
leaving the host and his company to compare 
notes, and to find out what an impudent intrusion 
they had experienced. 

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation 
of Goldsmith when triumphantly told by Glover 
that it was all a hoax, and that he did not know a 
single soul in the house. His first impulse was 
to return instantly and vindicate himself from 
all participation in the jest ; but a few words 
from his free-and-easy companion dissuaded him. 
" Doctor," said he, coolly, " we are unknown ; you 
quite as much as I ; if you return and tell the 
story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow ; 
nay, upon recollection, I remember in one of their 
offices the face of that squinting, fellow who sat 
in the corner as if he was treasuring up my sto- 
ries for future use, and we shall be sure of being 
3xposed ; let us therefore keep our own counsel." 

This story was frequently afterward told by 
Glover, with rich dramatic effect, repeating and 
exaggerating the conversation, and mimicking, in 



238 OLIVER UOLDSMITH. 

ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise, and 
subsequent indignation of Goldsmith. 

It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in 
two ruts ; nor a man keep two opposite sets of 
intimates. Goldsmith sometimes found his old 
friends of the "jolly-pigeon " order turning up 
rather aAvkwardly when he was in company "with 
his new aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a 
whimsical account of the sudden apparition of one 
of them at his gay apartments in the Temple, 
who may have been a welcome visitor at his 
squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. " How 
do you think he served me ? " said he to a friend. 
« Why, sir, after staying away two years, he came 
one evening into my chambers, half drunk, as I 
was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beau- 
clerc and General Oglethorpe ; and sitting him- 
self down, with most intolerable assurance inquired 
after my health and literary pursuits, as if we 
were upon the most friendly footing. I was at 
first so much ashamed of ever having known such 
a fellow, that I stifled my resentment, and drew 
him into a conversation on such topics as I knew 
he could talk upon ; in which, to do him justice, 
he acquitted himself very reputably ; when all 
of a sudden, as if recollecting something, he pulled 
two papers out of his pocket, which he presented 
to me with great ceremony, saying, ' Here, my 
dear friend, is a quarter of a pound of tea, and a ' 
half pound of sugar, I have brought you ; for 
though it is not in my power at present to pay 
you the two guineas you so generously lent me, 
you, nor any man else, shall ever have it to say 



THE UNWELCOME VISITOR. 



239 



that T want gratitude.' This," added Goldsmith, 
" was too much. I could no longer keep in my 
feelings, but desired him to turn out of my cham- 
bers directly ; which he very coolly did, taking 
up his tea and sugar ; and I never saw him after- 
wards." 



16 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

Reduced again to Book-building. — Rural Retreat at Shoe- 
maker's Paradise. — Death of Henry Goldsmith; Tributea 
to his Memory in the " Deserted Village." 

HE heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as 
may easily be supposed, soon brought 
to the end of his " prize-money," 
but when his purse gave out he drew upon futu- 
rity, obtaining advances from his booksellers and 
loans from his friends in the confident hope of 
soon turning up another trump. The debts which 
he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of 
a transient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him 
for the rest of his life ; so that the success of the 
" Good-natured Man " may be said to have been 
ruinous to him. 

He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of 
book-building, and set about his "History of 
Rome," undertaken for Davies. 

It was his custom, as we have shown, during 
the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity 
of literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment 
of some particular task, to take country lodgings 
a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow 
or Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for 
weeks and months together. Sometimes he would 
remain closely occupied in his room, at other times 



SHOEMAKERS PARADISE 241 

he would stroll out along the lanes and hedge- 
rows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down 
thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. 
His summer retreat for the present year, 1768 ; 
was a little cottage with a garden, pleasantly sit- 
uated about eight miles from town on the Edge- 
ware road. He took it in conjunction with a 
Mr. Edmund Botts, a barrister and man of let- 
ters, his neighbor in the Temple, having rooms 
immediately opposite him on the same floor. 
They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was 
one of those with whom Goldsmith now and then 
took the friendly but pernicious liberty of bor- 
rowing. 

The cottage which they had hired belonged to 
a rich shoemaker of Piccadilly, who had embel- 
lished his little domain of half an acre with 
statues, and jets, and all the decorations of land- 
scape gardening ; in consequence of which Gold- 
smith ^ gave it the name of The Shoemaker's 
Paradise. As his fellow - occupant, Mr. Botts, 
drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval of liter- 
ary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of 
a social dinner there, and returned with him in 
the evening. On one occasion, when they had 
probably lingered too long at the table, they came 
near breaking their necks on their way home- 
ward by driving against a post on the side-walk, 
while Botts was proving by the force of legal 
eloquence that they were in the rery middle of 
the broad Edge ware road. 

In the course of this summer, Goldsmith's 
career of gayety was suddenly brought to a pause 



242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

by intelligence of the death of his brother Henry, 
then but forty-five years of age. He had led a 
quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his 
youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with 
unaffected piety ; conducting the school at Lissoy 
with a degree of industry and ability that gave it 
celebrity, and acquitting himself in all the duties 
of life with undeviating rectitude and the mildest 
benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and 
venerated .him is evident in all his letters and 
throughout his works ; in which his brother con- 
tinually forms his model for an exemplification 
of all the most endearing of the Christian vir- 
tues ; yet his affection at his death was embit- 
tered by the fear that he died with some doubt 
upon his mind of the warmth of his affection. 
Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in Ire- 
land, since his elevation in the world, to use his 
influence with the great, which they supposed to 
be all-powerful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for 
him church-preferment. He did exert himself 
as far as his diffident nature would permit, but 
without success ; we have seen that, in the case 
of the Earl of Northumberland, when, as Lord- 
Lieutenant of Ireland, that nobleman proffered 
him his patronage, he asked nothing for himself, 
but only spoke on behalf of his brother. Still 
some of his friends, ignorant of what he had done 
and of how little he was able to do, accused him 
of negligence. It is not likely, however, that his 
amiable and estimable brother joined in the accu- 
sation. 

To the tender and melancholy recollections of 



HENRY GOLDSMITH. 243 

his early days awakened by the death of this 
loved companion of his childhood, we may attrib- 
ute some of the most heartfelt passages in his 
" Deserted Village." Much of that poem we are 
told was composed this summer, in the course of 
solitary strolls about the green lanes and beauti- 
fully rural scenes of the neighborhood ; and thus 
much of the softness and sweetness of English 
landscape became blended with the ruder features 
of Lissoy. It was in these lonely and subdued 
moments, when tender regret was half mingled 
with self-upbraiding, that he poured forth that 
homage of the heart rendered as it were at the 
grave of his brother. The picture of the village 
pastor in this poem, which we have already 
hinted was taken in part from the character of 
his father, embodied likewise the recollections of 
his brother Henry ; for the natures of the father 
and son seem to have been identical. In the fol- 
lowing lines, however, Goldsmith evidently con- 
trasted the quiet settled life of his brother, passed 
at home in the benevolent exercise of the Chris- 
tian duties, with his own restless vagrant ca- 
reer : — 

" Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." 

To us the whole character seems traced as it 
were in an expiatory spirit ; as if, conscious of 
his own wandering restlessness, he sought to 
humble himself at the shrine of excellence which 
he had not been able to practise : — 

" At church with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn' d the venerable place ; 



241 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Truth from his lips prevail' d with douhle sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain' d to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
Even children follow' d, with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile; 
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd, 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way." 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Dinner at Bickerstaff's. — Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity. 
Kenrick's Epigram. — Johnson's Consolation. — Gold- 
smith's Toilet. — The Bloom-colored Coat. — New Ac- 
quaintances; The Hornecks. — A Touch of Poetry and 
Passion. — The Jessamy Bride. 

... :»N October, Goldsmith returned to town 
and resumed his usual haunts. We hear 




of him at a dinner given by his country- 
man, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of " Love in a Vil- 
lage," " Lionel and Clarissa," and other success 
ful dramatic pieces. The dinner was to be fol- 
lowed by the reading by Bickerstaff of a new 
play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffer- 
nan, likewise an Irishman ; somewhat idle and 
intemperate ; who lived nobody knew how nor 
where, sponging wherever he had a chance, and 
often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever 
the vagabond's friend, or rather victim. Hiffer- 
nan was something of a physician, and elevated 
the emptiness of his purse into the dignity of a 
disease, which he termed impecuniosity, and 
against which he claimed a right to call for re- 
lief from the healthier purses of his friends. He 
was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a 
dramatic critic, which had probably gained him 
an invitation to the dinner and reading. The 



246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses, 
Scarce had the author got into the second act of 
his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at 
length snored outright. Bickerstaff was em- 
barrassed, but continued to read in a more ele- 
vated tone. The louder he read, the louder 
Hiffernan snored ; until the author came to a 
pause. " Never mind the brute, Bick, but go 
on," cried Goldsmith. " He would have served 
Homer just so if he were here and reading his 
own works." 

Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this 
anecdote in the following lines, pretending that 
the poet had compared his countryman Bickerstaff 
to Homer. 

" What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, 
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians ! 
Step into Griffin's shop, he '11 tell ye 
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly . . . 
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other, 
Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster-brother." 

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when 
wincing under an attack of this kind. " Never 
mind, sir," said he to Goldsmith, when he saw 
that he felt the sting. " A man whose business 
it is to be talked of is much helped by being at 
tacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock ; if it be 
struck only at one end of the room, it will soon 
fall to the ground ; to keep it up, it must be 
struck at both ends." 

Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speak- 
ing, was in high vogue, the associate of the first 
wits of the day ; a few years afterwards he was 



GOLDSMITH'S TOILET. 247 

obliged to fly the country to escape the punish- 
ment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed 
great astonishment at hearing the offence foi 
which he had fled. " Why, sir? " said Thrale 
" he had long been a suspected man." Perhaps 
there was a knowing look on the part of the emi- 
nent brewer, which provoked a somewhat con- 
temptuous reply. " By those who look close to 
the ground," said Johnson, " dirt will sometimes 
be seen ; I hope I see things from a greater dis- 
tance." 

We have already noticed the improvement, or 
rather the increased expense, of Goldsmith's ward- 
robe since his elevation into polite society. " He 
was fond," says one of his contemporaries, " of 
exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest 
apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig 
and sword." Thus arrayed, he used to figure 
about in the sunshine in the Temple Gardens, 
much to his own satisfaction, but to the amuse- 
ment of his acquaintances. 

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of 
his suits forever famous. That worthy, on the 
16th of October in this same year, gave a dinner 
to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Mur- 
phy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was 
generally apt to bustle in at the last moment, 
when the guests were taking their seats at table ; 
but on this occasion he was unusually early. 
While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, " he 
strutted about," says Boswell, " bragging of h»s 
dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for 
Uis mind was undoubtedly prone to such impre*- 



248 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sions. ' Come, come/ said Garriek, ' talk no 
more of that. You are perhaps the worst — eh, 
eh?' Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to inter- 
rupt him, when Garriek went on, laughing ironi- 
cally. ' Nay, you will always look like a gentle- 
man ; but I am talking of your being well or ill 
dressed.' ' Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, 
' when the tailor brought home my bloom-colored 
coat, he said, " Sir, I have a favor to beg of you ; 
when anybody asks you who made your clothes, 
be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, 
in Water Lane." ' ' Why, sir,' cried Johnson, 
' that was because he knew the strange color 
would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they 
might hear of him, and see how well he could 
make a coat of so absurd a color.' " 

But though Goldsmith might permit this rail- 
lery on the part of his friends, he was quick to 
resent any personalities of the kind from stran- 
gers. As he was one day walking the Strand in 
grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited 
the merriment of two coxcombs, one of whom 
called to the other to " look at that fly with a 
long pin stuck through it." Stung to the quick, 
Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers- 
by to be on their guard against " that brace of 
disguised pickpockets," — his next was to step 
into the middle of the street, where there was 
room for action, half-draw his sword, and beckon 
the joker, who was armed in like manner, to fol- 
low him. This was literally a war of wit which 
the other had not anticipated. He had no incli- 
nation + o push the joke to such an extreme, but 



NEW ACQ VAIN TAN CES. 249 

abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his 
brother-wag amid the hootings of the spectators. 

This proneness to finery in dress, however, 
which Boswell and others of Goldsmith's contem- 
poraries, who did not understand the secret plies 
of his character, attributed to vanity, arose, we 
are convinced, from a widely different motive. It 
was from a painful idea of his own personal de- 
fects, which had been cruelly stamped upon his 
mind in his boyhood, by the sneers and jeers of 
his playmates, and had been ground deeper into 
it by rude speeches made to him in every step of 
his struggling career, until it had become a con- 
stant cause of awkwardness and embarrassment. 
This he had experienced the more sensibly since 
his reputation had elevated him into polite so- 
ciety ; and he was constantly endeavoring by the 
aid of dress to acquire that personal acceptability, 
if we may use the phrase, which nature had de- 
nied him. If ever he betrayed a little self-com- 
placency on first turning out in a new suit, it 
may, perhaps, have been because he felt as if he 
had achieved a triumph over his ugliness. 

There were circumstances too, about the time 
of which we are treating, which may have ren- 
dered Goldsmith more than usually attentive to 
his personal appearance. He had recently made 
the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from 
Devonshire, which he met at the house of his friend, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Hor- 
neck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck ; two 
daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age ; 
and an only son, Charles, th? Captain in Lace, as 



250 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

his sisters playfully and somewhat proudly calleJ 
him, he having lately entered the Guards. The 
daughters are described as uncommonly beautiful, 
intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catharine, 
the eldest, went among her friends by the name 
of Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her 
disposition. She was engaged to William Henry 
Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The 
hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unen- 
gaged, although she bore the by-name among her 
friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family was 
prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds and his 
sister, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith. The 
poet had always been a chosen friend of the emi- 
nent painter ; and Miss Reynolds, as we have 
shown, ever since she had heard his poem of " The 
Traveller " read aloud, had ceased to consider him 
ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of for- 
getting his person in admiring his works. On be- 
coming acquainted with him, too, they were de- 
lighted with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant 
good-nature, and his innate benevolence ; and an 
enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. 
For once poor Goldsmith had met with polite so- 
ciety, with which he was perfectly at home, and 
by which he was fully appreciated ; for once he had 
met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features 
were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and 
playful terms in which he was with them, remains 
in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the follow- 
ing was the occasion. A dinner was to be given 
to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their 
mother's, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauff- 



A RHYMING EPISTLE. 251 

man were to be present. The young ladies were 
eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and their 
intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the 
liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at 
the last moment. It came too late, and drew from 
him the following reply ; on the top of which was 
scrawled, " This is a poem ! This is a copy of 
verses ! " 



" Your mandate I got, 
You may all go to pot ; 
Had your senses been right, 
You'd have sent before night: 
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, 
And Baker and his bit, 
And Kauffman beside, 
And the Jessamy Bride, 
With the rest of the crew, 
The Reyuoldses too, 



Little Comedy's face, 
And the Captain in Lace, — 
Tell each other to rue 
Your Devonshire crew, 
For sending so late 
To one of my state. 
But 't is Reynolds's way 
From wisdom to stray, 
And Angelica's whim 
To befrolic like him ; 



But alas ! your good woi'ships, how could they be wiser, 
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's ' Advertiser ' ? " * 

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor 
Goldsmith with the Miss Hornecks, whiclj began 
in so sprightly a vein, gradually assumed some 
thing of a more tender nature, and that he was 
not insensible to the fascinations of the younger 

* The following lines had appeared in that day's " Adver- 
tiser," on the portrait of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman : - 

" While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, 
Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face; 
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, 
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away. 
But when the likeness she hath done for thee, 
O Reynolds ! with astonishment we see, 
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, 
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none, 
And thou art ri railed by thyself alone." 



252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sister. This may account for some of the phe- 
nomena which about this time appeared in his 
wardrobe and toilet. During the first year of his 
acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell-tale 
book of Ins tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays 
entries of four or five full suits, besides separate 
articles of dress. Among the items we find a 
green half-trimmed frock and breeches, lined with 
silk ; a queen's-blue dress suit ; a half-dress suit 
of ratteen, lined with satin ; a pair of silk stock- 
ing-breeches, and another pair of a bloom-color. 
Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! how much of this silken 
finery was dictated, not by vanity, but humble 
consciousness of thy defects ; how much of it was 
to atone for the uncouthness of thy person, and to 
win favor in the eyes of the Jessamy Bridf ! 



CHAPTER XXVI. 




Goldsmith in the Temple. — Judge Day and Grattan. — La- 
bor and Dissipation. — Publication of the Roman History. 
Opinions of it. — " History of Animated Nature." — Tem- 
ple Rookery. — Anecdotes of a Spider. 

;N the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occu- 
pied himself at his quarters in the Temple, 
slowly " building up " his Roman His- 
tory. We have pleasant views of him in this 
learned and half-cloistered retreat of wits and 
lawyers and legal students, in the reminiscences 
of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in his ad- 
vanced age delighted to recall the days of his 
youth, when he was a templar, and to speak of the 
kindness with which he and his fellow-student, 
Grattan, were treated by the poet. " I was just 
arrived from college," said he, " full freighted with 
academic gleanings, and our author did not dis- 
dain to receive from me some opinions and hints 
towards his Greek and Roman histories. Beinc 
then a young man, I felt much flattered by the 
notice of so celebrated a person. He took great 
delight in the conversation of Grattan, whose brill- 
iancy in the morning of life furnished full ear- 
nest of the unrivalled splendor which awaited his 
meridian ; and finding us dwelling together in 
Essex Court, near himself, where he frequently 



254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

visited my immortal friend, his warm heart be- 
came naturally prepossessed towards the associate 
of one whom he so much admired." 

The Judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to 
give a picture of Goldsmith's social habits, similar 
in style to those already furnished. He frequented 
much the Grecian Coffee-House, then the favorite 
resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He 
delighted in collecting his friends around him at 
evening parties at his chambers, where he enter- 
tained them with a cordial and unostentatious hos- 
pitality. " Occasionally," adds the Judge, " he 
amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither 
of which he played well, particularly the latter, 
but, on, losing his money, he never lost his tem- 
per. In a run of bad luck and. worse play, he 
would fling his cards upon the floor and exclaim. 
'Byefore George, I ought forever to renounce thee, 
fickle, faithless fortune.' " 

The Judge was aware, at the time, that all the 
learned labor of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman 
History was mere hack-work to recruit his ex- 
hausted finances. " His purse replenished," adds 
he, " by labors of this kind, the season of relaxa- 
tion and pleasure took its turn, in attending the 
theatres, Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of 
gayety and amusement. Whenever his funds were 
dissipated, — and they fled more rapidly from be- 
ing the dupe of many artful persons, male and 
female, who practised upon his benevolence, — he 
returned to his literary labors, and shut himself 
up from society to provide fresh matter for his 
bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself." 



ROMAN HISTORY. 255 

How completely had the young student dis- 
cerned the characteristics of poor, genial, generous, 
drudging, holiday-loving Goldsmith ; toiling, that 
he might play ; earning his bread by the sweat 
of his brains, and then throwing it out of the 
window. 

The Roman History was published in the mid- 
dle of May, in two volumes of five hundred pages 
each. It was brought out without parade or pre- 
tension, and was announced as for the use of 
schools and colleges ; but, though a work written 
for bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, 
good sense, and the delightful simplicity of its 
style, that it was well received by the critics, com- 
manded a prompt and extensive sale, and has ever 
since remained in the hands of young and old. 

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, 
rarely praised or dispraised things by halves, 
broke forth in a warm eulogy of the author and 
the work, in a conversation with Boswell, to the 
great astonishment of the latter. " Whether we 
take Goldsmith," said he, " as a poet, as a comic 
writer, or as an historian, he stands in the first 
class." Boswell. — "An historian! My dear 
sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of 
the Roman History with the works of other his- 
torians of this age." Johnson. — " Why, who 
are before him ? " Boswell. — " Hume — Rob- 
ertson — Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his antipa- 
thy against the Scotch beginning to rise). — "I 
have not read Hume ; but doubtless Goldsmith's 
History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, 
or the foppery of Dalrymple." Boswell. — 
17 



256 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" Will you not admit the superiority of Robert- 
son, in whose history we find such penetration, 
such painting ? " Johnson. — " Sir, you must 
consider how that penetration and that painting 
are employed. It is not history, it is imagina- 
tion. He who describes what he never saw, 
draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir 
Joshua paints faces, in a history-piece ; he im- 
agines an heroic countenance. You must look 
upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by 
that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, 
it is the great excellence of a writer to put into 
his book as much as his book will hold. Gold- 
smith has done this in his History. Now Robert- 
son might have put twice as much in his book. 
Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in 
wool ; the wool takes up more room than the 
gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would 
be crushed with his own weight — would be 
buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells 
jow. shortly all you want to know ; Robertson 
detains you a great deal too long. No man will 
read Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time ; 
but Goldsmith's plain narrative will please again 
and again. I would say to Robertson what an 
old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, 
' Read over your compositions, and whenever you 
meet with a passage which you think is particu- 
larly fine, strike it out ! ' Goldsmith's abridg- 
ment is better than that of Lucius Florus or 
Eutropius ; and I will venture to say, that, if you 
compare him with Vertot in the same places of 
the Roman History, you will find that he excel? 



"HISTORY OF ANIMATED NATURE." 257 

Vertot. Sir, be has the art of compiling, and of 
Baying everything he has to say in a pleasing 
manner. He is now writing a Natural History, 
and will make it as entertaining as a Persian 
tale." 

The Natural History to which Johnson alluded 
was the " History of Animated Nature," which 
Goldsmith commenced in 1769, under an engage- 
ment with Griffin, the bookseller, to complete it 
as soon as possible in eight volumes, each con- 
taining upwards of four hundred pages, in pica £ 
a hundred guineas to be paid to the author on 
the delivery of each volume in manuscript. 

He was induced to engage in this work by the 
urgent solicitations of the booksellers, who had 
been struck by the sterling merits and captivat- 
ing style of an intr6duction which he wrote to 
Brookes's "Natural History." It was Goldsmith's 
intention originally to make a translation of 
Pliny, with a popular commentary ; but the ap- 
pearance of Buffon's work induced him to change 
his plan, and make use of that author for a guide 
and model. 

Cumberland, speaking of this work, observes : 
" Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings 
neither congenial with his studies nor worthy of 
his talents. I remember him when, in his cham- 
bers in the Temple, he showed me the beginning 
of his ' Animated Nature ' ; it was with a sigh, 
such as genius draws when hard r.ecessity diverts 
it from its bent to drudge for bread, and talk of 
birds, and beasts, and creeping things, which- 
Pidock's showman would have done as well 



258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Poor fellow, he hardly knows an ass from a 
mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he 
Bees it on the table." 

Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained sim- 
ilar ideas with respect to his fitness for the task, 
and they were apt now and then to banter him 
on the subject, and to amuse themselves with his 
easy credulity. The custom among the nativet 
of Otaheite of eating dogs being once mentioned 
in company, Goldsmith observed that a similar 
custom prevailed in China ; that a dog-butcher is 
as common there as any other butcher ; and that, 
when he walks abroad, all the dogs fall on him. 
Johnson. — " That is not owing to his killing 
dogs ; sir, I remember a butcher at Litchfield, 
whom a dog that was in the house where I lived 
always attacked. It is the smell of carnage 
which provokes this, let the animals he has killed 
be what they may." Goldsmith/ — " Yes, there 
is a general abhorrence in animals at the signs of 
massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a 
stable, the horses are likely to go mad." John- 
son. — "I doubt that." Goldsmith. — "Nay, 
sir, it is a fact well authenticated." Thrale. — 
" You had better prove it before you put it into 
your book on Natural History. You may do it 
in my stable if you will." Johnson. — " Nay, sir, 
I would not have him prove it. If he is content 
to take his information from others, he may get 
tli rough his book with little trouble, and without 
much endangering his reputation. But if he 
makes experiments for 3 so comprehensive a book 
ar< his, there would be no cud to them ; his 



COLONY OF ROOKS. 25 & 

erroneous assertions would fall then upon him 
self; and he might be blamed for not having 
made experiments as to every particular." 

Johnson's original prediction, however, with 
respect to this work, that Goldsmith would make 
it as entertaining as a Persian tale, was verified 
and though much of it was borrowed from Buffon, 
and but little of it written from his own observa- 
tion, — though it was by no means profound, and 
was chargeable with many errors, yet the charms 
of his style and the play of his happy disposition 
throughout have continued to render it far more 
popular and readable than many works on the 
subject of much greater scope and science. Cum- 
berland was mistaken, however, in his notion of 
Goldsmith's ignorance and lack of observation as 
to the characteristics of animals. On the con- 
trary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of 
them ; but he observed them with the eye of a 
poet and moralist as well as a naturalist. We 
quote two passages from his works illustrative of 
this fact, and we do so the more readily because 
they are in a manner a part of his history, and 
give us another peep into his private life in the 
Temple, — of his mode of occupying himself in 
his lonely and apparently idle moments, and of 
another class of acquaintances which he made 
(here. 

Speaking in his " Animated Nature " of the 
habitudes of Rooks, " I have often amused my- 
self," says he, "with observing their plans of 
policy from my window in the Temple, that looks 
upon a grove, where they have made a colony in 



260 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the midst of a city. At the commencement of 
spring the rookery, which during the continu- 
ance of winter seemed to have been deserted, 01 
only guarded by about five or six, like old 
soldiers in a garrison, now begins to be once 
more frequented, and in a short time all the 
bustle and hurry of business will be fairly com- 
menced." 

The other passage, which we take the liberty 
to quote at some length, is from an admirable 
paper in the " Bee," and relates to the House- 
Spider. 

" Of all the solitary insects I have ever re- 
marked, the spider is the most sagacious, and its 
motions to me, who have attentively considered 
them, seem almost to exceed belief. ... I per- 
ceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one 
corner of my room making its web ; and, though 
the maid frequently levelled her broom against 
the labors of the little animal, I had the good 
fortune then to prevent its destruction, and I may 
say it more than paid me by the entertainment 
it afforded. 

" In three days the web was, with incredible 
diligence, completed ; nor could I avoid thinking 
that the insect seemed to exult in its new abode. 
It frequently traversed it round, examined the 
strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, 
and came out very frequently. The first enemy, 
however, it had to encounter was another and a 
much larger spider, which, having no web of its 
own, and having probably exhausted all its stock 
in former labors of this kind, came to invade the 



ANECDOTES OF A SPIDER. 261 

property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible 
encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed 
to have the victory, and the laborious spider was 
obliged to take refuge in its hole. Upon this I 
perceived the victor using every art to draw the 
enemy from its stronghold. He seemed to go 
off, but quickly returned ; and when he found all 
arts in vain, began to demolish the new web 
without mercy. This brought on another battle, 
and, contrary to my expectations, the laborious 
spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his an- 
tagonist. 

" Now, then, in peaceable possession of what 
was justly its own, it waited three days with the 
utmost impatience, repairing the breaches of its 
web, and taking no sustenance that I could per- 
ceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into 
the snare, and struggled hard to get loose. The 
spider gave it leave to entangle itself as much as 
possible, but it seemed to be too strong for the 
cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised 
when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and 
in less than a minute weave a new net round its 
captive, by which the motion of its wings was 
fstopped ; and, when it was fairly hampered ir 
this manner, it was seized and dragged into the 

hole. 

"In this manner it lived, in a precarious 
state ; and Nature seemed to have fitted it for 
such a life, for upon a single fly it subsisted for 
more than a week. I once put a wasp into the 
uet ; but when the spider came out in order to 
seize it (3 usual, upon perceiving what kind of an 



262 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

onemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all 
the bands that held it fast, and contributed all 
that lay in its power to disengage so formidable 
an antagonist. When the wasp was set at lib* 
erty, I expected the spider would have set about 
repairing the breaches that were made in its net ; 
but those, it seems, were irreparable ; wherefore 
the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new 
one begun, which was completed in the usual 
time. 

" I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a 
single spider could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed 
this, and the insect set about another. When I 
destroyed the other also, its whole stock seemed 
entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. 
The arts it made use of to support itself, now 
deprived of its great means of subsistence, were 
indeed surprising. I have seen it roll up its legs 
like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, 
but cautiously watching all the time ; when a fly 
happened to approach sufficiently near, it would 
dart out all at once, and often seize its prey. 

" Of this life, however, it soon began to grow 
weary, and resolved to invade the possession of 
some other spider, since it could not make a web 
of its own. It formed an attack upon a neigh- 
boring fortification with great vigor, and at first 
was as vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, how- 
ever, with one defeat, in this manner it continued 
to lay siege to another's web for three days, and 
at length, having killed the defendant, actually 
took possession. When smaller flies happen to 
fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out 



ANECDOTES OF A SPIDER. 2G3 

at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of 
them ; for, upon his immediately approaching, the 
terror of his . appearance might give the captive 
strength sufficient to get loose ; the manner, then, 
is to wait patiently, till, by ineffectual and im- 
potent struggles, the captive has wasted all its 
strength, and then he becomes a certain and easy 
conquest. 

" The insect I am now describing lived three 
years ; every year it changed its skin and got a 
new set of legs. I have sometimes plucked off 
a leg, which grew again in two or three days. 
At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but 
at last it became so familiar as to take a fly out 
of my hand ; and, upon my touching any part of 
the web, would immediately leave its hole, pre- 
pared either for a defence or an attack." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to his Brother Mau- 
rice. — Family Fortunes. — Jane Contarine and 1;he Min- 
iature. — Portraits and Engravings. — School Associations. 
Johnson and Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. 



^-g^HE latter part of the year 1768 had been 
33 111 mac ^ e memorable in the world of taste 
fe>^J|§j by the institution of the Royal Academy 
of Arts, under the patronage of the King, and the 
direction of forty of the most distinguished artists. 
Reynolds, who had been mainly instrumental in 
founding it, had been unanimously elected presi- 
dent, and had thereupon received the honor of 
knighthood.* Johnson was so delighted with his 
friend's elevation, that he broke through a rule of 
total abstinence with respect to wine, which lie 
had maintained for several years, and drank 
bumpers on the occasion. Sir Joshua eagerly 
sought to associate his old and valued friends with 
him in his new honors, and it is supposed to be 
through his suggestions that, on the first estab- 
lishment of professorships, which took place in 



* We must apologize for the anachronism we have per- 
mitted ourselves in the course of this memoir, in speaking of 
Reynolds as Sir Joshua, -when treating of circumstances which 
occurred prior to his being dubbed; but it is so customary to 
speak of him by that title, that we found it difficult to dis- 
pense with it. 



LETTER TO HIS BROTHER MAURICE. 265 

December, 1769, Johnson was nominated to that 
of Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith to that of 
History. They were mere honorary titles, with- 
out emolument, but gave distinction, from the 
noble institution to which they appertained. They 
also gave the possessors honorable places at the 
annual banquet, at which were assembled many 
of the most distinguished persons of rank and 
talent, all proud to be classed among the patrons 
of the arts. 

The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother 
alludes to the foregoing appointment, and to a 
small legacy bequeathed to him by his uncle Con- 
tarine. 

" To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Lawder's, 
Esq., at Kilmore, near Garrich-on- Shannon. 

"January, 1770. 
" Dear Brother, — I should have answered 
your letter sooner, but, in truth, I am not fond of 
thinking of the necessities of those I love, when 
it is so very little in my power to help them. I 
am sorry to find you are every way unprovided 
for ; and what adds to my uneasiness is, that I 
have received a letter from my sister Johnson, by 
which I learn that she is pretty much in the same 
circumstances. As to myself, I believe I think I 
could get both you and my poor brother-in-law 
something like that which you desire, but I am 
determined never to ask for little things, nor ex- 
haust any little interest I may have, until I can 
serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As 
yet, no opportunity has offered ; but T believe you 



266 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

are pretty well convinced that I will not be remisa 
when it arrives. 

" The King has lately been pleased to make me 
professor of Ancient History in the royal academy 
of painting which he has just established, but 
there is no salary annexed; and I took it rather 
as a compliment to the Institution than any benefit 
to myself. Honors to one in my situation are 
something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt. 

" You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen 
pounds left me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, 
and you ask me what I would have done with 
them. My dear brother, I would by no means 
give any directions to my dear worthy relations 
at Kilmore how to dispose of money which is, 
properly speaking, more theirs than mine. All 
that I can say is, that I entirely, and this let- 
ter will serve to witness, give up any right and 
title to it ; and I am sure they will dispose of it 
to the best advantage. To them I entirely leave 
it ; whether they or you may think the whole 
necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor sis- 
ter Johnson may not want the half, I leave entirely 
to their and your discretion. The kindness of 
that good couple to our shattered family demands 
our sincerest gratitude ; and, though they have 
almost forgotten me, yet, if good things at last 
arrive, I hope one day to return and increase 
their good-humor by adding to my own. 

" I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature pic- 
ture of myself, as I believe it is the most accept- 
able present I can offer. I have ordered it to be 
ieft for her at George Faulkner's, folded in a lei- 



A SHATTERED FAMILY. 267 

ier. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, 
but it is finely painted. I will shortly also send 
my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto 
prints of myself, and some more of my friends 
here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Col- 
man. I believe I have written a hundred letters 
to different friends in your country, and never 
received an answer to any of them. I do not 
know how to account for this, or why they are 
unwilling to keep up for me those regards which 
I must ever retain for them. 

" If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you 
will write often, whether I answer you or not. Let 
me particularly have the news" of our family and 
old acquaintances. For instance, you may begin 
by telling me about the family where you reside, 
how they spend their time, and whether they ever 
make mention of me. Tell me about my mother, 
my brother Hodson and his son, my brother Har- 
ry's son and daughter, my sister Johnson, the 
family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, 
where they live, and how they do. You talked of 
being my only brother : I don't understand you. 
Where is Charles ? A sheet of paper occasion- 
ally filled with the news of this kind would make 
me very happy, and would keep you nearer my 
mind. As it is, my dear brother, believe me 
/> be Yours, most affectionately, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same 
shifting, shiftless race as formerly ; a " shattered 
family," scrambling on each other's back as soon 



268 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

as any rise above the surface. Maurice is " every 
way unprovided for " ; living upon cousin Jane and 
her husband ; and, perhaps, amusing himself by 
hunting otter in the river Inny. Sister Johnson 
and her husband are as poorly off as Maurice, 
with, perhaps, no one at hand to quarter them- 
selves upon ; as to the rest, " what is become of 
them? where do they live? and how do they do? 
vhat has become of Charles ? " What forlorn, 
hap-hazard life is implied by these questions ! Can 
we wonder that, with all the love for his native 
place, which is shown throughout Goldsmith's 
writings, he had not the heart to return there ? 
Yet his affections are still there. He wishes to 
know whether the Lawders (which means his 
cousin Jane, his early Valentine) ever made men- 
tion of him ; he sends Jane his miniature ; he be- 
lieves k ' it is the most acceptable present he can 
offer " ; he evidently, therefore, does not believe 
she has almost forgotten him, although he inti- 
mates that he does : in his memory she is still 
Jane Contarine, as he last saw her, when he ac- 
companied her harpsichord with his flute. Ab- 
sence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those 
wo have loved ; we cannot realize the interven- 
ing changes which time may have effected. 

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he aban- 
dons his legacy of fifteen pounds, to be shared 
among them. It is all he has to give. His heed- 
less improvidence is eating up the pay of the 
booksellers in advance. With all his literary suc- 
cess, he has neither money nor influence ; but he 
has empty fame, and he is ready to participate 



PORTRAITS AND ENGRAVINGS. 2G9 

with them ; he is honorary professor, without pay ; 
his portrait is to be engraved in mezzotint, in com- 
pany with those of his friends, Burke, Reynolds, 
Johnson, Colman, and others, and he will send prints 
of them to his friends over the Channel, though 
they may not have a house to hang them up in 
What a motley letter ! How indicative of the 
motley character of the writer ! By the by, the 
publication of a splendid mezzotinto engraving of 
his likeness by Reynolds was a great matter of 
glorification to Goldsmith, especially as it appeared 
in such illustrious company. As he was one day 
walking the streets in a state of high elation, from 
having just seen it figuring in the print-shop win- 
dows, he met a young gentleman with a newly 
married wife hanging on his arm, whom he imme- 
diately recognized for Master Bishop, one of the 
boys he had petted and treated with sweetmeats 
when a humble usher at Milner's school. The 
kindly feelings of old times revived, and he accosted 
him with cordial familiarity, though the youth 
may have found some difficulty in recognizing in 
the personage, arrayed, perhaps, in garments of 
Tyrian dye, the dingy pedagogue of the Milners. 
" Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, as if still 
speaking to a school-boy, — " come, Sam, I am de- 
lighted to see you. I must treat you to some- 
thing — what shall it be ? Will you have some 
apples ? " glancing at an old woman's stall ; then, 
recollecting the print-shop window : " Sam," said 
he, " have you seen my picture by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds ? Have you seen it, Sam ? Have you 
got an engraving ? " Bishop was caught ; lie 



270 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

equivocated ; he had not yet bought it ; but he 
was furnishing his house, and had fixed upon the 
place where it was to be hung. " Ah, Sam ! " 
rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, "if your pic- 
ture had been published, I should not have 
waited an hour" without having it." 

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in 
Goldsmith, that was gratified at seeing his por- 
trait deemed worthy of being perpetuated by the 
classic pencil of Reynolds, and " hung up in his- 
tory " beside that of his revered friend Johnson. 
Even the great moralist himself was not insensi- 
ble to a feeling of this kind. Walking one day 
with Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey, among the 
tombs of monarchs, warriors, and statesmen, they 
came to the sculptured mementos of literary 
worthies in poets' corner. Casting his eye round 
upon these memorials of genius, Johnson mut- 
tered in a low tone to his companion, — 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and 
shortly afterwards, as they were passing by Tem- 
ple Bar, where the heads of Jacobite rebels, exe- 
cuted for treason, were mouldering aloft on spikes, 
pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed 
the intimation, 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istit" 




CHAPTER XXVIH. 

Publication of the " Deserted Village" ; Notices and Illustra 

tions of it. 
r 

5^/^(S|EVERAL years had now elapsed since 
||m| the publication of "The Traveller," and 
a>^-d=-^ much wonder was expressed that the 
great success of that poem had not excited the 
author to further poetic attempts. On being ques- 
tioned at the annual dinner of the Royal Acad- 
emy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he neglected 
the Muses to compile histories and write novels, 
" My Lord," replied he, " by courting the Muses 
I shall starve, but by my other labors I eat, drink, 
have good clothes, and can enjoy the luxuries of 
life." So, also, on being asked by a poor writer 
what was the most profitable mode of exercising 
the pen, — " My dear fellow," replied he, good- 
humoredly, " pay no regard to the draggle-tailed 
Muses ; for my part I have found productions in 
prose much more sought after and better paid for." 
Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, 
he found sweet moments of dalliance to steal away 
from his prosaic toils, and court the Muse among 
the green lanes and hedge-rows in the rural envi- 
rons of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, 
he was enabled to bring his " Deserted Village " 
before the public > 

18 



272 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The popularity of " The Traveller " had pre* 
pared the way for this poem, and its sale Avas 
instantaneous and immense. The first edition was 
immediately exhausted ; in a few days a second 
was issued ; in a few days more a third, and by 
the 1 6th of August the fifth edition was hurried 
through the press. As is the case with popular 
writers, he had become his own rival, and critics 
were inclined to give the preference to his first 
poem ; but with the public at large we believe the 
" Deserted Village " has ever been the greatest 
favorite. Previous to its publication the book- 
seller gave him in advance a note for the price 
agreed upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter 
was returning home he met a friend to whom he 
mentioned the circumstance, and who, apparently 
judging of poetry by quantity rather than qual- 
ity, observed that it was a great sum for so small 
a poem. " In truth," said Goldsmith, " I think sc 
too ; it is much more than the honest man can 
afford or the piece is worth. I have not been 
easy since I received it." In fact, he actually re- 
turned the note to the bookseller, and left it tv 
him to graduate the payment according to the 
success of the work. The bookseller, as may well 
be supposed, soon repaid him in full with many 
acknowledgments of his disinterestedness. This 
anecdote has been called in question, we know 
not on what grounds ; we see nothing in it incom- 
patible with the character of Goldsmith, who was 
very impulsive, and prone to acts of inconsiderate 
generosity. 

As we do not pretend in this summary memoi? 



THOUGHTS OF HOME. 273 

to go into a criticism or analysis of any of Gold- 
smith's writings, we shall not dwell upon the pecu- 
liar merits of this poem ; we cannot help noticing, 
however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's 
heart, and of all the fond pictures of early friends 
and early life forever present there. It seems to 
us as if the very last accounts received from home, 
of his " shattered family," and the desolation that 
seemed to have settled upon the haunts of his 
childhood, had cut to the roots one feebly cherished 
hope, and produced the following exquisitely ten- 
der and mournful lines : — 

" In all my wand'rings round this world of care, 
In all rny griefs — and God has giv'n my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 
I si ill had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
Amid the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 
Around my tire an ev'ning group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew; 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return — and die at home at last." 

How touchingly expressive are the succeeding 
lines, wrung from a heart which all the trials and 
temptations and bufferings of the world could not 
render worldly ; which, amid a thousand follies 
<md errors of the head, still retained its childlike 
innocence ; and which, doomed to struggle on to 
the last amidst the din and turmoil of the metrop- 
olis, had ever been cheating itself with a dream 
of rural quiet and seclusion : — 



274 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" Oh bless'd retirement ! friend to life's decline, 
Retreats from care, that never must be mine. 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 



NOTE. 

The following article, which appeared in a Lon- 
don periodical, shows the effect of Goldsmith's 
poem in renovating the fortunes of Lissoy. 

"About three miles from Ballymahon, a very 
central town in the sister-kingdom, is the mansion 
and village of Auburn, so called by their present 
possessor, Captain Hogan. Through the taste and 
improvement of this gentleman, it is now a beau- 
tiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented 
a very bare and unpoetical aspect. This, however, 
was owing to a cause which serves strongly to 
corroborate the assertion, that Goldsmith had this 
scene in view when he wrote his poem of ' The 
Deserted Village.' The then possessor, Gen- 
eral Napier, turned all his tenants out of their 
farms that he might enclose them in his own pri- 
vate domain. Littleton, the mansion of the Gen 



LISSOT. 275 

ernl, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the 
desolating spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated 
and converted into a barrack. 

" The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, one? 
the parsonage-house of Henry Goldsmith, that 
brother to whom the poet dedicated his ' Travel 
ler,' and who is represented as a village pastor, 

" ' Passing rich with forty pounds a year.' 

" When I was in the country, the lower cham- 
bers were inhabited by pigs and sheep, and the 
drawing-rooms bv oats. • Captain Hogan, however, 
has, I believe, got it since into his possession, and 
has, of course, improved its condition. 

" Though at first strongly inclined to dispute 
the identity of Auburn, Lissoy House overcame 
my scruples. As I clambered over the rotten 
gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn or court, 
the tide of association became too strong for cas- 
uistry : here the poet dwelt and wrote, and here 
his thoughts fondly recurred when composing his 
' Traveller ' in a foreign land. Yonder was the 
decent church, that literally ' topped the neighbor- 
ing hill.' Before me lay the little hill of Knock- 
rue, on which he declares, in one of his letters, 
he had rather sit with a book in hand than min- 
gle in the proudest assemblies. And, above all, 
startlingly true, beneath my feet was 

" ' Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild.' 

" A painting from the life could not be more 
3xact. ' The stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its 



276 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

head above the rank grass, and the proud holly- 
hock flaunts where its sisters of the flower-knot 
are no more. 

" In the middle of the village stands the old 
* hawthorn-tree,' built up with masonry to distin- 
guish and preserve it ; it is old and stunted, and 
suffers much from the depredations of post-chaise 
travellers, who generally stop to procure a twig. 
Opposite to it the village alehouse, over the door 
of which swings ' The Three Jolly Pigeons.' 
Within, everything is arranged according to the 
letter : — 

" ' The whitewash'*! wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 
The varnish' d clock that click 'd behind the door: 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.' 

" Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great 
difficulty in obtaining l the twelve good rules,' but 
at length purchased them at some London book- 
stall to adorn the whitewashed parlor of ' The 
Three Jolly Pigeons.' However laudable this 
may be, nothing shook my faith in the reality of 
Auburn so much as this exactness, which had the 
disagreeable air of being got up for the occasion. 
The last object of pilgrimage is the quondam hab- 
itation of the schoolmaster, 

" ' There, in his noisy mansion, skill' d to rule.' 

It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of iden- 
tity in 

" ' The blossom'd furze, unprcfitably gay.' 



THE POETS CHAIR. 277 

There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which 
fell into the hands o/ its present possessors at the 
wreck of the parsonage-house; they have fre- 
quently refused large offers of purchase; but 
more, I dare say, for the sake of drawing contri- 
butions from the curious than from any reverence 
for the bard. The chair is of oak, with back and 
seat of cane, which precluded all hopes of a se- 
cret drawer, like that lately discovered in Gay's. 
There is no fear of its being worn out by the 
devout earnestness of sitters — as the cocks and 
hens have usurped undisputed possession of it, 
and protest most clamorously against all attempts 
to get it cleansed or to seat one's self. 

" The controversy concerning the identity of 
this Auburn was formerly a standing theme of 
discussion among the learned of the neighborhood ; 
but, since the pros and cons have been all ascer- 
tained, the argument has died away. Its abettors 
plead the singular agreement between the local 
history of the place and the Auburn of the poem, 
and the exactness with which the scenery of the 
one answers to the description of the other. To 
this is opposed the mention of the nightingale, 

" ' And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made ; ' 

there being no such bird in the island. The ob- 
jection is slighted, on the other hand, by consider- 
ing the passage as a mere poetical license. ' Be- 
sides,' say they, ' the robin is the Irish nightin- 
gale.' And if it be hinted how unlikely it was 
that Goldsmith should have laid the scene in a 
place from which he was and had been so long 



273 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

absent, the rejoinder is always, ' Pray> sir was 
Milton in hell when he built Pandemonium V 

" The line is naturally drawn between ; there 
can be no doubt that the poet intended England 

by 

" ' The land to hast'ning ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' 

But it is very natural to suppose that, at the 
same time, his imagination had in view the scene 
of his youth, which give such strong features of 
resemblance to the picture." 



Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the trav- 
eller in America, that the hawthorn-bush men- 
tioned in the poem was ^till remarkably large. 
" I was riding once," said he, " with Brady, titu- 
lar Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, 
' Ma foy Best, this huge overgrown bush is might- 
ily in the way. I will order it to be cut down.' 
— i What, sir ! ' replied I, ' cut down the bush 
that supplies so beautiful an image in " The De- 
serted Village " ? ' — ' Ma foy ! ' exclaimed the 
bishop, ' is that the hawthorn-bush ? Then let it 
be sacred from the edge of the axe, and evil be 
to him that should cut off a branch.' " — The 
hawthorn-bush, however, has long since been cut 
up, root and branch, in furnishing relics to liter* 
ary pilgrims. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Poet among the Ladies; Description of his Person and 
Manners. — Expedition to Paris with the Horneck Family. 
The Traveller of Twenty and the Traveller of Forty. — 
Hickey, the Special Attorney. — An unlucky Exploit. 

** HE " Deserted Village " had shed an ad- 




ditional poetic grace round the homely 
^^^i person of the author; he was becoming 
more and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and 
finding himself more and more at ease in their 
society ; at least in the society of those whom he 
met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he par- 
ticularly affected the beautiful family of the Hor- 
necks. 

But let us see what were really the looks and 
manners of Goldsmith about this time, and what 
right he had to aspire to ladies' smiles ; and in so 
doing let us not take the sketches of Boswell and 
his compeers, who had a propensity to represent 
him in caricature ; but let us take the apparently 
truthful and discriminating picture of him as lie 
appeared to Judge Day, when the latter was a 
student in the Temple'. 

" In person," says the Judge, " he was short ; 
about five feet five or six inches ; strong, but not 
heavy in make ; rather fair in complexion, with 
brown hair; such, at least, as could be distin- 



28<> OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

guished from his wig. His features were plain 
but not repulsive, — certainly not so when lighted 
up by conversation. His manners were simple, 
natural, and perhaps on the whole, we may say, 
not polished ; at least without the refinement and 
good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his 
compositions would lead us to expect. He was 
always cheerful and animated, often, indeed, bois- 
terous in his mirth ; entered with spirit into con- 
vivial society ; contributed largely to its enjoy- 
ments by solidity of information, and the naivete 
and originality of his character ; talked often 
without premeditation, and laughed loudly with- 
out restraint." 

This, it will be recollected, represents him as 
he appeared to a young Templar, who probably 
saw him only in Temple coffee-houses, at students' 
quarters, or at the jovial supper-parties given at 
the poet's own chambers. Here, of course, his 
mind was in its rough dress ; his laugh may 
have been loud and his mirth boisterous ; but we 
trust all these matters became softened and modi- 
fied when he found himself in polite drawing- 
rooms and in female society. 

But what say the ladies themselves of him ; 
and here, fortunately, we have another sketch of 
him, as he appeared at the time to one of the 
Horneck circle ; in fact, we believe, to the Jessa- 
my Bride herself. After admitting, apparently, 
with some reluctance, that " he was a very plain 
man," she goes on to say, " but had he been much 
more so, it was impossible not to love and respect 
his goodness of heart, which broke out on every 



HINTS AND SURMISES. 281 

occasion. His benevolence was unquestionable, 
and hi% countenance bore every trace of it : no one 
that knew him intimately could avoid admiring 
and loving his good qualities." When to all this 
we add the idea of intellectual delicacy and re- 
finement associated with him by his poetry and 
the newly-plucked bays that were flourishing 
round his brow, we cannot be surprised that fine 
and fashionable ladies should be proud of his 
attentions, and that even a young beauty should 
not be altogether displeased with the thoughts of 
having a man of his genius in her chains. 

We are led to indulge some notions of the kind 
from finding him in the month of July, but a few 
weeks after the publication of the " Deserted 
Village," setting off on a six weeks' excursion to 
Paris, in company with Mrs. Horneck and her 
two beautiful daughters. A day or two before 
his departure, we find another new gala suit 
charged to him on the books of Mr. William 
Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy 
Bride responsible for this additional extravagance 
of wardrobe ? Goldsmith had recently been 
editing the works of Parnell ; had he taken cour- 
age from the example of Edwin in the Fairy 
tale ? — 

" Yet spite of all that nature did 
To make his uncouth form forbid, 

This creature dared to love. 
He felt the force of Edith's eyes, 
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize 
Could ladies look within'''' 

All this we throw out as mere hints and sur- 



282 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

mises, leaving it to our readers to draw their own 
conclusions. It will be found, however, that the 
poet was subjected to shrewd bantering among 
his contemporaries about the beautiful Mary Hor- 
neck, and that he was extremely sensitive on the 
subject. 

It was in the month of June that he set out 
for Paris with his fair companions, and the fol- 
lowing letter was written by him to Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, soon after the party landed at Calais. 

" My dear, Friend, — 

" We had a very quick passage from Dover to 
Calais, which we performed in three hours and 
twenty minutes, all of us extremely sea-sick, 
which must necessarily have happened, as my 
machine to prevent sea-sickness was not com- 
pleted. We were glad to leave Dover, because 
we hated to be imposed upon ; so were in high 
spirits at coming to Calais, where we were told 
that a little money would go a great way. 

" Upon landing, with two little trunks, which 
was all we carried with us, we were ^surprised to 
see fourteen or fifteen fellows all running down to 
the ship to lay their hands upon them ; four got 
under each trunk, the rest surrounded and held 
the hasps ; and in this manner our little baggage 
was conducted, with a kind of funeral solemnity, 
till it was safely lodged at the custom-house. We 
were well enough pleased with the people's civility 
till they came to be paid ; every creature that had 
the happiness of but touching our trunks with 
their finger expected sixpence and they had sc 



BOS WELDS ABSURDITIES. 283 

pretty and civil a manner of demanding it, that 
there was no refusing them. 

" When we had done with the porters, we had 
next to speak with the custom-house officers, who 
had their pretty civil way too. We were directed 
to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where a valet-de-place 
came to offer his service, and spoke to me ten 
minutes before I once found out that he was 
speaking English. We had no occasion for his 
services, so we gave him a little money because 
he spoke English, and because he wanted it. I 
cannot help mentioning another circumstance : I 
bought a new riband for my wig at Canterbury, 
and the barber at Calais broke it in order to gain 
sixpence by buying me a new one." 

An incident which occurred in the course of 
this tour has been tortured by that literary mag- 
pie, Boswell, into a proof of Goldsmith's absurd 
jealousy of any admiration shown to others in 
his presence. While stopping at a hotel in Lisle, 
they were drawn to the windows by a military 
parade in front. The extreme beauty of the Miss 
Hornecks immediately attracted the attention of 
the officers, who broke forth with enthusiastic 
speeches and compliments intended for their ears. 
Goldsmith was amused for a while, but at length 
iffected impatience at this exclusive admiration of 
tris beautiful companions, and exclaimed, with 
mock severity of aspect, " Elsewhere I also would 
have my admirers." 

It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of in- 
'ellec^. necessary to misconstrue so obvious a piece 



284 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of mock petulance and dry humor into an instance 
of mortified vanity and jealous self-conceit. 

Goldsmith jealous of the admiration of a group 
of gay officers for the charms of two beautiful 
young women ! This even out-Boswells Boswell ; 
yet this is but one of several similar absurdities, 
evidently misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar 
vein of humor, by which the charge of envious 
jealousy has been attempted to be fixed upon 
him. In the present instance it was contradicted 
by one of the ladies herself, who was annoyed 
that it had been advanced against him. " I am 
sure," said she, " from the peculiar manner of his 
humor, and assumed frown of countenance, what 
was often uttered in jest was mistaken, by those 
who did not know him, for earnest." No one 
was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. 
He had a tolerable perception of wit, but none of 
humor. 

The following letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds 
was subsequently written. 

" To Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

" Paris, July 29, [1770.] 
" My dear Friend, — I began a long letter 
to you from Lisle, giving a description of all that 
we had done and seen, but, finding it very dull, 
and knowing that you would show it again, I 
threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the 
top of this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I 
have often heard you say) we have brought our 
own amusement with us, for the ladies do nof 
seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. 



LETTER TO REYNOLDS. 285 

" With regard to myself, I find that travelling 
at twenty and forty are very different things. 
I set out with all my confirmed habits about me, 
and can find nothing on the Continent so good as 
when I formerly left it. One of our chief amuse- 
ments 1iere is scolding at everything we meet 
with, and praising everything and every person we 
left at home. You may judge, therefore, whether 
your name is not frequently bandied at table 
among us. To tell you the truth, I never 
thought I could regret your absence so much as 
our various mortifications on the road have often 
taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters 
and adventures without number ; of our lying in 
barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish 
of green peas ; of our quarrelling with postilions, 
and being cheated by our landladies ; but I re- 
serve all this for a happy hour which I expect to 
share with you upon my return. 

" I have little to tell you more, but that we 
are at present all well, and expect returning when 
we have stayed out one month, which I did not 
care if it were over this very day. I long to hear 
from you all, how you yourself do, how Johnson, 
Burke, Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of 
the club do. I wish I could send you some amuse- 
ment in this letter, but I protest I am so stupefied 
by the air of this country (for I am sure it cannot 
be natural) that I have not a word to say. I 
have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, which 
shall be entitled ' A Journey to Paris,' in which 
a family shall be introduced with a full intention 
of going to France to save money. You know 



286 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

there is not a place in the world more promising 
for that purpose. * As for the meat of this coun- 
try, I can scarce eat it ; and though we pay two 
good shillings a head for our dinner, I find it all 
so tough that I have spent less time with my 
knife than my picktooth. I said this as a good 
thing at the table, but it was not understood. I 
believe it to be a good thing. 

" As for our intended journey to Devonshire, 
I find it out of my power to perform it ; for, as 
soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the 
ladies go on, and I will take a country-lodging 
somewhere near that place in order to do some 
business. I have so outrun the constable that 
I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For 
God's sake, the night you receive this, take your 
pen in your hand and tell me something about 
yourself and myself, if you know anything that 
has happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. 
Bickerstaff, my nephew, or anybody that you re- 
gard. I beg you will send to Griffin the book- 
seller to know if there be any letters left for me, 
and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. 
They may perhaps be left for me at the Porter's 
Lodge, opposite the pump in Temple Lane. The 
same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord 
Clare, from Ireland. As for the others, I am 
not much uneasy about. 

" Is there anything I can do for you at Paris r 
I wish you would tell me. The whole of my 
own purchases here is one silk coat, which I have 
put on, and which makes me look like a fool. But 
no more of that. I find that Colman has gained 



THE CHANGES OF TWENTY YEARS. 287 

his lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often 
meet. I will soon be among you, better pleased 
with my situation at home than I ever was before. 
And yet I must say, that, if anything could make 
France pleasant, the very good woman with whom 
I am at present would certainly do it. I could 
say more about that, but I intend showing them 
the letter before I send it away. What signifies 
teasing you longer with moral observations, when 
the business of my writing is over ? I have one 
thing only more to say, and of that I think every 
hour in the day, namely, that I am your most sin- 
care and most affectionate friend, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

" Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, ) 
Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains." ) 

A word of comment on this letter : — 
Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing 
with Goldsmith the poor student at twenty, and 
Goldsmith the poet and Professor at forty. At 
twenty, though obliged to trudge on foot from 
town to town, and country to country, paying for 
a supper and a bed by a tune on the flute, every- 
thing pleased, everything was good; a truckle- 
bed in a garret was a couch of down, and the 
homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epi- 
cure. Now, at forty, when he posts through the 
country in a carriage, with fair ladies by his side, 
everything goes wrong : he has to quarrel with 
postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the ho- 
tels are barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, 
and he is half poisoned by green peas ! A line in 
his letter explains the secret : " the ladies do not 
19 



288 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

seem to be very fond of what we have seen." 
" One of our chief amusements is scolding at every- 
thing we meet with, and praising everything and 
every person we have left at home ! " — the true 
English travelling amusement. Poor Goldsmith ! 
he has " all his confirmed habits about him " ; that 
is to say, he has recently risen into high life, and 
acquired high-bred notions ; he must be fastidious 
like his fellow-travellers ; he dare not be pleased 
with what pleased the vulgar tastes of his youth. 
He is unconsciously illustrating the trait so humor- 
ously satirized by him in Ned Tibbs, the shabby 
beau, who can find "no such dressing as he had 
at Lord Crump's or Lady Crimp's " ; whose very 
senses have grown genteel, and who no longer 
" smacks at wretched wine or praises detestable 
custard." A lurking thorn, too, is worrying him 
throughout this tour ; he has " outrun the consta- 
ble " ; that is to say, his expenses have outrun his 
means, and he will have to make up for this but- 
terfly flight by toiling like a grub on his return. 

Another circumstance contributes to mar the 
pleasure he had promised himself in this excui- 
sion. At Paris the party is unexpectedly joined 
by a Mr. Hickey, a bustling attorney, who is well 
acquainted with that metropolis and its environs, 
and insists on playing the cicerone on all occa- 
sions. He and Goldsmith do not relish each 
f )ther, and they have several petty altercations. 
The lawyer is too much a man of business and 
method for the careless poet, and is disposed to 
manage everything. -He has perceived Gold- 
smith's whimsical peculiarities without properly 



THE SPECIAL ATTORNEY. 289 

appreciating his merits, and is prone to indulge in 
broad bantering and raillery at his expense, par- 
ticularly irksome if indulged in presence of the* 
ladies. He makes himself merry on his return 
to England, by giving the following anecdote as 
illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity : — 

" Being with a party at Versailles, viewing 
ihe water-works, a question arose among the gen- 
tlemen present, whether the distance from whence 
they stood to one of the little islands was within 
the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained 
the affirmative ; but, being bantered on the sub- 
ject, and remembering his former prowess as a 
youth, attempted the leap, but, falling short, de- 
scended into the water, to the great amusement 
of the company." 

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this un- 
lucky exploit? 

This same Hickey is the one of whom Gold- 
smith, some time subsequently, gave a good-hu- 
mored sketch, in his poem of " The Retaliation." 

" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, 
And slander itself must allow him good-nature ; 
He cherish' d his friend, and he relish' d a bumper, 
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser ; 
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser ; 
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat? 
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that; 
Perhaps he confided in men as they go, 
And so was too foolishly honest ? Ah, no ! 
Then what was his failing ? Come, tell it, and ~urn ye — 
Be was, could he help it? a special attorney." 

One of the few remarks extant made by Gold- 



290 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

smith during his tour is the following, of whim- 
sical import, in his " Animated Nature." 

" In going through the towns of France, some 
time since, I could not help observing how much 
plainer their parrots spoke than ours, and how 
very distinctly I understood their parrots speak 
French, when I could not understand our own, 
though they spoke my native language. I at 
first ascribed it to the different qualities of the 
two languages, and was for entering into an elab- 
orate discussion on the vowels and consonants ; 
but a friend that was with me solved the diffi- 
culty at once, by assuring me that the French 
women scarce did anything else the whole day 
than sit and instruct their feathered pupils ; and 
that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons 
in consequence of continual schooling." 

His tour does not seem to have left in his 
memory the most fragrant recollections ; for, 
being asked, after his return, whether travelling 
on the Continent repaid " an Englishman for the 
privations and annoyances attendant on it," he 
replied, " I recommend it by all means to the sick, 
if they are without the sense of smelling, and to 
the poor if they are without the sense of feeling, 
and to both if they can discharge from their minds 
all idea of what in England we term comfort." 

It is needless to say that the universal improve- 
ment in the art of living on the Continent has at 
the present day taken away the force of Gold- 
smith's rejly, though even at the time it was 
more humorous than correct. 




CHAPTER XXX. 

Death of Goldsmith's Mother, — Biography of Parnell. — 
Agreement with Davies for the History of Rome. — Life 
of Bolingbroke. — The Haunch of Venison. 

N his return to England, Goldsmith re- 
,.^)^ ceived the melancholy tidings of the 
^ death of his mother. Notwithstanding 
the fame as an author to which he had attained, 
she seems to have been disappointed in her early 
expectations from him. Like others of his fam- 
ily, she had been more vexed by his early follies 
than pleased by his proofs of genius ; and in sub- 
sequent years, when he had risen to fame and to 
intercourse with the great, had been annoyed at 
the ignorance of the world and want of manage- 
ment, which prevented him from pushing his for- 
tune. He had always, however, been an affec- 
tionate son, and in the latter years of her life, 
when she had become blind, contributed from his 
precarious resources to prevent her from feeling 
want. 

He now resumed the labors of the pen, which 
his recent excursion to Paris rendered doubly 
necessary. We should have mentioned a " Life 
of Parnell," published by him shortly after the 
* Deserted Village." It was, as usual, a piece of 
job-work, hastily got up for pocket-money. John- 



292 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

son spoke slightingly of it, and the author him- 
self thought proper to apologize for its meagre- 
ness, — yet, in so doing, used a simile, which for 
beauty of imagery and felicity of language is 
enough of itself to stamp a value upon the essay. 

" Such," says he, " is the very unpoetical detail 
of the life of a poet. Some dates and some few 
facts, scarcely more interesting than those that 
make the ornaments of a country tombstone, are 
all that remain of one whose labors now begin to 
excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living 
is seldom an object sufficiently great to attract 
much attention ; his real merits are known but to 
a few, and these are generally sparing in then 
praises. When his fame is increased by time, i* 
is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of 
his disposition ; the dews of morning are past, on? 
we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridiar 
splendor." 

He now entered into an agreement W'th 
Davies to prepare an abridgment, in one volume 
duodecimo, of his " History of Rome " ; but first 
to write a work for which there was a more im- 
mediate demand. Davies was about to republish 
Lord Bolino-broke's " Dissertation on Parties," 
which he conceived would be exceedingly appli- 
cable to the affairs of the day, and make a prob- 
able hit during the existing state of violent politi- 
cal excitement ; to give it still greater effect and 
currency, he* engaged Goldsmith to introduce it 
with a prefatory life of Lord Bolingbroke. 

About thjs time Goldsmith's friend and coun- 
tryman, Lord Clare, was in great affliction. 



BIOGRAPHY OF B0L1NGBR0KE. 293 

caused by the death of his only son, Colonel 
Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of 
a kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore, 
Goldsmith paid him a visit at his seat of Gosfield, 
taking his tasks with him. Davies was in a 
worry lest Gosfield Park should prove a Capua 
to the poet, and the time be lost. " Dr. Gold- 
smith," writes he to a friend, " has gone with 
Lord Clare into the country, and I am plagued to 
get the proofs from him of the 'Life of Lord 
Bolingbroke.' " The proofs, however, were fur- 
nished in time for the publication of the work in 
December. The " Biography," though written 
during a time of political turmoil, and introducing 
a work intended to be thrown into the arena of 
politics, maintained that freedom from party prej- 
udice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. 
It was a selection of facts, drawn from many un- 
readable sources, and arranged into a clear, flow- 
ing narrative, illustrative of the career and char- 
acter of one who, as he intimates, " seemed 
formed by Nature *o take delight in struggling 
with opposition ; whose most agreeable hours 
were passed in storms of his own creating ; whose 
life was spent in a continual conflict of politics, 
and as if that was too short for the combat, has 
left his memory as a subject of lasting conten- 
tion." The sum received by the author for this 
memoir is supposed, from circumstances; to have 
been forty pounds. 

Goldsmith did not find the residence among 
the great unattended with mortifications. He had 
now become accustomed to be regarded in Lon- 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

don as a literary lion, and was annoyed, at what 
he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Cam- 
den, lie complained of it on his return to town 
at a party of his friends. " I met him," said he, 
" at Lord Clare's house in the country ; and he 
took no more notice of me than if I had been an 
ordinary man." " The company," says Boswell, 
" laughed heartily at this piece of ' diverting sim- 
plicity.' " And foremost among the laughers was 
doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. Johnson, how- 
ever, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the 
poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but 
himself; perhaps in the present instance he 
thought the dignity of literature itself involved in 
the question. " Nay, gentlemen," roared he, " Dr. 
Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to 
have made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I 
think it is much against Lord Camden that he 
neglected him." 

After Goldsmith's return to town he received 
from Lord Clare a present of game, which he has 
celebrated and perpetuated in his amusing verses 
entitled the " Haunch of Venison." Some of the 
lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment 
caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic 
delicacy in the humble kitchen of a poet, accus- 
tomed to look up to mutton as a treat : — 

" Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter 

Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter: 

The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 

The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy; 

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 

To spoil such a delicate picture by eating : 



AN EMBARRASSING BLUNDER. 295 

I had thought in my chambers to place it in view, 

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu; 

As in some Irish houses where things are so-so, 

One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show ; 

But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pi'ide in, 

They 'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in. 

But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat, 
Your very good mutton 's a very good treat; 
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt ; 
It 's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.'''' 

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Gold« 
smith's blunders which took place on a subsequent 
visit to Lord Clare's, when that nobleman was re- 
siding in Bath. 

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland 
had houses next to each other, of similar architec- 
ture. Returning home one morning from an 
early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his frequent fits 
of absence, mistook the house, and walked up 
into the Duke's dining-room, where he and the 
Duchess were about to sit down to breakfast. 
Goldsmith, still supposing himself in the house of 
Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made 
them an easy salutation, being acquainted with 
them, and threw himself on a sofa in the loung- 
ing manner of a man perfectly at home. The 
Duke and Duchess soon perceived his mistake, 
and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, 
with the considerateness of well-bred people, to 
prevent any awkward embarrassment. They 
accordingly chatted sociably with him about mat- 
ters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they 
invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed 
jpon poor heedless Goldsmith ; he started up 



196 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



from his free-and-easy position, made a confused 
apology for his blunder, and would have retired 
perfectly disconcerted, had not the Duke and 
Duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence 
to throw him in their way, and exacted a promise 
from him to dine with them. 

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to 
his blunder on his first visit to Northumberland 
House. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 




Dinner at the Royal Academy. — The Rowley Controversy. 
Horace Walpole's Conduct to Chatterton. — Johnson at 
Redcliffe Church. — Goldsmith's History of England. — 
Davies's Criticism. — Letter to Bennet Langton. 

g|^fN St. George's day of this year (1771), 
|| the first annual banquet of the Royal 
Academy was held in the exhibition- 
room ; the walls of which were covered with 
works of art, about to be submitted to public in- 
spection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who first sug- 
gested this elegant festival, presided in his offi- 
cial character ; Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of 
course, were present, as Professors of the acad- 
emy ; and, beside the academicians, there was a 
large number of the most distinguished men of 
the day as guests. Goldsmith on this occasion 
drew on himself the attention of the company by 
launching out with enthusiasm on the poems re- 
cently given to the world by Chatterton, as the 
works of an ancient author by the name of Row- 
ley, discovered in the tower of Redcliffe Church, 
at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them with rap- 
ture, as a treasure of old English poetry. This 
immediately raised the question of their authenti- 
city ; they having been pronounced a forgery of 
Chatterton's. Goldsmith was warm for their being 



298 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

genuine. When he considered, he said, the merit 
of the poetry, the acquaintance with life and the 
human heart displayed in them, the antique quaint- 
ness of the language and the familiar knowledge 
of historical events of their supposed day, he could 
not believe it possible they could be the work of 
a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and con- 
fined to the duties of an attorney's office. They 
must be the productions of Rowley. 

Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Row- 
ley, as he had been in Ossian, rolled in his chair 
and laughed at the enthusiasm of Goldsmith. 
Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined in the 
laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the 
" trouvaille" as he called it, " of his friend Chat- 
terton " was in question. This matter, which had 
excited the simple admiration of Goldsmith, was 
no novelty to him, he said. " He might, had he 
pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great 
discovery to the learned world." And so he 
might, had he followed his first impulse in the 
matter, for he himself had been an original 
believer ; had pronounced some specimen verses 
sent to him by Chatterton wonderful for their 
harmony and spirit ; and had been ready to print 
them and publish them to the world with his 
sanction. When he found, however, that his un- 
known correspondent was a mere boy, humble in 
sphere and indigent in circumstances, and when 
Gray and Mason pronounced the poems forgeries, 
he had changed his whole conduct towards the 
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and cold- 
ness had dashed all his sanguine hopes to the 
ground. 



CHA TTER TON. 299 

Exulting in his superior discernment, tins cold* 
hearted man of society now went on to divert 
himself, as he says, with the credulity of Gold- 
smith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce 
" an inspired idiot " ; but his mirth was soon 
dashed, for on asking the poet what- had become 
of this Chatterton, he was answered, doubtless in 
the feeling tone of one who had experienced the 
pangs of despondent genius, that " he had been to 
London, and had destroyed himself." 

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even 
to the cold heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may 
have visited his cheek at his recent levity. " The 
persons of honor and veracity who were present," 
said he in after-years, when he found it necessary 
to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless 
neglect of genius, " will attest with what surprise 
and concern I thus first heard of his death." 
WeH might he feel concern. His cold neglect 
had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit of 
that youthful genius, and hurry him towards his 
untimely end ; nor have all the excuses and pal- 
liations of Walpole's friends and admirers been 
ever able entirely to clear this stigma from his 
fame. 

But what was there in the enthusiasm and 
credulity of honest Goldsmith in this matter, to 
subject him to the laugh of Johnson or the rail- 
leiy of Walpole ? Granting the poems were not 
ancient, were they not good ? Granting they were 
not the productions of Rowley, were they the less 
admirable for being the productions of Chatter- 
ton? Johnson himself testified to their merits 



300 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and the genius of their composer, when, some 
years afterwards, he visited the tower of Eed- 
eliffe Church, and was shown the coffer in which 
poor Chatterton had pretended to find them. 
" This," said he, " is the most extraordinary young 
man that has encountered my knowledge. It is 
wonderful how the ivhelp has written such things." 

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, 
and had subsequently a dispute with Dr. Percy 
on the subject, which interrupted and almost de- 
stroyed their friendship. After all, his enthusiasm 
was of a generous, poetic kind ; the poems remain 
beautiful monuments of genius, and it is even now 
difficult to persuade one's self that they could be 
entirely the productions of a youth of sixteen. 

In the month of August was published anony- 
mously the " History of England," on which 
Goldsmith had been for some time employed. It 
was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he» ac- 
knowledged in the preface, from Rap in, Carte, 
Smollett, and Hume, " each of whom," says he, 
" have their admirers, in proportion as the reader 
is studious of political antiquities, fond of minute 
anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate rea- 
soner." It possessed the same kind of merit as 
his other historical compilations ; a clear, succinct 
narrative, a simple, easy, and graceful style, and 
an agreeable arrangement of facts ; but was not 
remarkable for either depth of observation or 
minute accuracy of research. Many passages 
were transferred, with little if any alteration, from 
his " Letters from a Nobleman to his Son " on 
the same subject. The work, though written 



THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND." 301 

without party feeling, met with sharp animadver- 
sions from political scribblers. The writer was 
charged with being unfriendly to liberty, dis- 
posed to elevate monarchy above its proper 
sphere : a tool of ministers ; one who would be- 
tray his country for a pension. Tom Davies, 
the publisher, the pompous little bibliopole of 
Russell Street, alarmed lest the book should prove 
unsalable, undertook to protect it by his pen, and 
wrote a long article in its defence in " The Pub- 
lic Ad\ ertiser." He was vain of his critical effu- 
sion, anJ sought by nods and winks and innuen- 
does to intimate his authorship. " Have you 
seen," s^ id he, in a letter to a friend, " ' An Im- 
partial Account of Goldsmith's History of Eng- 
land ' ? If you want to know who was the writer 
of it, you will find him in Russell Street ; — but 
mum /„ " 

The History, on the whole, however, was well 
received ; some of the critics declared that Eng- 
lish history had never before been so usefully, 
so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, " and, like 
his other historical writings, it has kept its 
ground " in English literature. 

Goldsmith had intended this summer, in com- 
pany with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to 
Bennet Langton, at his seat in Lincolnshire, where 
he was settled in domestic life, haying the year 
previously married the Countess Dowager of 
Rothes. The following letter, however, dated 
from his chambers in the Temple, on the 7th of 
September, apologizes for putting off the visit, 
while it gives an amusing account of his summer 



302 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

occupations and of the attacks of the critics on his 
" History of England " : — 

"My dear Sir, — 

" Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, 
I have been almost wholly in the country, at a 
farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a com- 
edy. It is now finished ; but when or how it will 
be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are 
questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so 
much employed upon that, that I am under the 
necessity of putting off my intended visit to Lin- 
colnshire for this season. Reynolds is just returned 
from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of 
a truant that must make up for his idle time by 
diligence. We have therefore agreed to postpone 
our journey till next summer, when we hope to 
have the honor of waiting upon Lady Rothes and 
you, and staying double the time of our late in- 
tended visit. We often meet, and never without 
remembering you. I see Mr. Beauclerc very of- 
ten both in town and country. He is now going 
directly forward to become a second Boyle : deep 
in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down 
on a visit to a country parson, Doctor Taylor, and 
is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. 
Burke is a farmer, en attendant a better place ; 
but visiting about too. Every soul is visiting 
about and merry but myself. And that is hard 
too, as I have been trying these three months to 
do something to make people laugh. There have 
I been strolling about the hedges, studying jests 
with a most tragical countenance. The " Natu- 



LETTER fo LANG TON. 303 

ral History " is about half finished, and I will 
shortly finish the rest. God knows I am tired of 
this kind of finishing, which is but bungling work ; 
and that not so much my fault as the fault of 
my scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in 
town of the Opposition's gaining ground ; the cry 
of liberty is still as loud as ever. I have pub- 
lished, or Davies has published for me, an " Abridg- 
ment of the History of England," for which I 
have been a good deal abused in the newspapers, 
for betraying the liberties of the people. God 
knows I had no thought for or against liberty in 
my head ; my whole aim being to make up a 
book of a decent size, that, as 'Squire Richard 
says, would do no harm to nobody. However, 
they set me down as an arrant Tory, and conse- 
quently an honest man. When you come to look 
at any part of it, you '11 say that I am a sore Whig. 
God bless you, and with my most respectful com- 
pliments to her Ladyship, I remain, dear Sir, your 
most affectionate humble servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 




20 




CHAPTER XXXII. 

Marriage of Little Comedy. — Goldsmith at Barton. — Practi- 
cal Jokes at the Expense of his Toilet. — Amusements at 
Barton. — Aquatic Misadventure. 

'HOUGH Goldsmith found it impossible to 
break from his literary occupations to 
visit Bennet Langton, in Lincolnshire, he 
soon yielded to attractions from another quarter, 
in which somewhat of sentiment may have min- 
gled. Miss Catherine Horneck, one of his beauti- 
ful fellow-travellers, otherwise called Little Com- 
edy, had been married in August to Henry 
William Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, 
who has become celebrated for the humorous 
productions of his pencil. Goldsmith was shortly 
afterwards invited to pay the newly married 
couple a visit at their seat, at Barton, in Suffolk. 
How could he resist such an invitation — espe- 
cially as the Jessamy Bride would, of course, be 
among the guests ? It is true, he was hampered 
with work ; he was still more hampered with 
debt ; his accounts with Newbery were perplexed ; 
but all must give way. New advances are pro- 
cured from Newbery, on the promise of a new 
tale in the style of the " Vicar of "Wakefield," of 
which he showed him a few roiighly-sketched 
chapters ; so, his purse replenished in the old way, 



VISIT TO BARTON. 305 

* by hook or by crook," he posted off to visit the 
bride at Barton. He found there a joyous house- 
hold, and one where he was welcomed with affec- 
tion. Garrick was there, and played the part of 
master of the revels, for he was an intimate friend 
of the master of the house. Notwithstanding 
early misunderstandings, a social intercourse be- 
tween the actor and the poet had grown up of 
late, from meeting together continually in the 
same circle. A few particulars have reached us 
concerning Goldsmith while on this happy visit. 
We believe the legend has come down from Miss 
Mary Horneck herself. " While at Barton," she 
says, " his manners were always playful and amus- 
ing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme of 
innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invita- 
tion with ' Come, now, let us play the fool a little.' 
At cards, which was commonly a round game, and 
the stake small, he was always the most noisy, 
affected great eagerness to win, and teased his 
opponents of the gentler sex with continual jest 
and banter on their want of spirit in not risking 
the hazards of the game. But one of his most 
favorite enjoyments was to romp with the children, 
when he threw off all reserve, and seemed one of 
the most joyous of the group. 

" One of the means by which he amused us 
was his songs, chiefly of the comic kind, which 
were sung with some taste and humor ; several, 
I believe, were of his own composition, and I re- 
gret that I neither have copies, which might have 
oeen readily procured from him at the time, noi 
do I remember their names." 



BOG OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

His perfect good-humor made him the object 
of tricks of all kinds ; often in retaliation of some 
prank which he himself had played off. Unluck- 
ily, these tricks were sometimes made at the ex- 
pense of his toilet, which, with a view peradven- 
ture to please the eye of a certain fair lady, he 
had again enriched to the impoverishment of his 
purse. " Being at all times gay in his dress," 
says this ladylike legend, " he made his appear- 
ance at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk 
coat with an expensive pair of ruffles ; the coat 
some one contrived to soil, and it was sent to be 
cleansed ; but, either by accident, or probably by 
design, the day after it came home, the sleeves 
became daubed with paint, which was not discov- 
ered until the ruffles also, to his great mortifica- 
tion, were irretrievably disfigured. 

" He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which 
those who judge of his appearance only from the 
fine poetical head of Reynolds would not suspect ; 
and on one occasion some person contrived seri- 
ously to injure this important adjunct to dress. 
It was the only one he had in the country, and 
the misfortune seemed irreparable until the ser- 
vices of Mr. Bunbury's valet were called in, who, 
however, performed his functions so indifferently, 
that poor Goldsmith's appearance became the sig- 
nal for a general smile." 

This was wicked waggery, especially when it 
was directed to mar all the attempts of the unfor- 
tunate poet to improve his personal appearance, 
about which he was at all times dubiously sensi- 
tive, ant 1 particularly when among the ladies. 



AQUATIC MISADVENTURE. 307 

We have in a former chapter recorded his un- 
lucky tumble into a fountain at Versailles, when 
attempting a feat of agility in presence of the fair 
Hornecks. Water was destined to be equally 
baneful to him on the present occasion. " Some 
difference of opinion," says the fair narrator 
" having arisen with Lord Harrington respecting 
the depth of a pond, the poet remarked that it 
was not so deep but that, if anything valuable 
was to be found at the bottom, he would not 
hesitate to pick it up. His lordship, after some 
banter, threw in a guinea ; Goldsmith, not to 
be outdone in this kind of bravado, in attempting 
to fulfil his promise without getting wet, acci- 
dentally fell in, to the amusement of all present , 
but persevered, brought out the money, and kept 
it, remarking that he had abundant objects on 
whom to bestow any farther proofs of his lord- 
ship's whim or bounty." 

All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary 
Horneck, the Jessamy Bride herself; but while 
she gives these amusing pictures of poor Gold- 
smith's eccentricities, and of the mischievous 
pranks played off upon him, she bears unqualified 
testimony, which we have quoted elsewhere, to 
the qualities of his head and heart, which shone 
forth in his countenance, and gained him the love 
of all who knew him. 

Among the circumstances of this visit vaguely 
called to mind by this fair lady in after years, 
was that Goldsmith read to her and her sister 
the first part of a novel which he had in hand. 
It was doubtless the manuscript mentioned at the? 



303 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

beginning of this chapter, on which he had obtained 
an advance of money from Newbery to stave off 
some pressing debts, and to provide funds for this 
very visit. It never was finished. The book- 
seller, when he came afterwards to examine the 
manuscript, objected to it as a mere narrative 
version of the " Good-Natured Man." Goldsmith, 
too easily put out of conceit of his writings, threw 
it aside, forgetting that this was the very New- 
bery who kept his " Vicar of Wakefield " by him 
nearly two years, through doubts of its success. 
The loss of the manuscript is deeply to be re- 
gretted ; it doubtless would have been properly 
wrought up before given to the press, and might 
have given us new scenes of life and traits of char- 
acter, while it could not fail to bear traces of his 
delightful style. What a pity he had not been 
guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at Bar- 
ton, instead of that of the astute Mr. Newbery ! 





CHAPTER XXXHI. 

Dinner at General Oglethorpe's. — Anecdotes of the General.— 
Dispute about Duelling. — Ghost Stories. 

E have mentioned old General Ogle- 
thorpe as one of Goldsmith's aristocrat- 
s' ical acquaintances. This veteran, born 
in 1698, had commenced life early, by serving, 
when a mere stripling, under Prince Eugene, 
against the Turks. He had continued in mili- 
tary life, and been promoted to the rank of ma- 
jor-general in 1745, and received a command 
during the Scottish rebellion. Being of strong 
Jacobite tendencies, he was suspected- and ac- 
cused of favoring the rebels ; and though aquit- 
ted by a court of inquiry, was never afterwards 
employed ; or, in technical language, was shelved. 
He had since been repeatedly a member of Par- 
liament, and had always distinguished himself by 
learning, taste, active benevolence, and high Tory 
principles. His name, however, has become his- 
torical, chiefly from his transactions in America, 
and the share he took in the settlement of the col- 
ony of Georgia. It lies embalmed in honorable 
immortality in a single line of Pope's : — 

" One, driven by strong benevolence of soul, 
Shall Jy, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." 



SlO OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The veteran was now seventy-four years of age, 
but healthy and vigorous, and as much the preux 
chevalier as in his younger days, when he served 
with Prince Eugene. His table was often the 
gathering-place of men of talent. Johnson was 
frequently there, and delighted in drawing from 
the General details of his various " experiences." 
He was anxious that he should give the world 
his life. " I know no man," said he, " whose life 
would be more interesting." Still the vivacity 
of the General's mind and the variety of his 
knowledge made him skip from subject to sub- 
ject too fast for the Lexicographer. " Ogle- 
thorpe," growled he, "never completes what he 
has to say." 

Boswell gives us an interesting and character- 
istic account of a dinner-party at the General's, 
(April 10th, 1772,) at which Goldsmith and 
Johnson were present. After dinner, when the 
cloth was removed, Oglethorpe, at Johnson's re- 
quest, gave an account of the siege of Belgrade, 
in the true veteran style. Pouring a little wine 
upon the table, he drew his lines and parallels 
with a wet finger, describing the positions of the 
opposing forces. " Here were we — here were 
the Turks," to all which Johnson listened with 
the most earnest attention, poring over the plans and 
diagrams with his usual purblind closeness. 

In the course of conversation the General gave 
an anecdote of himself in early life, when serving 
under Prince Eugene. Sitting at table once in 
company with a prince of Wurtemberg, the latter 
gave a fillip to a glass of wine, so as to make 



DISPUTE ABOUT DUELLING. 311 

some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The man' 
ner in which it was done was somewhat equiv 
ocal. How was it to be taken by the stripling 
officer ? If seriously, he must challenge thy 
Prince ; but in so doing he might fix on him- 
self the character of a drawcansir. If passecl 
over without notice, he might be charged with 
cowardice. His mind was made up in an in- 
stant. " Prince," said he, smiling, " that is an 
excellent joke ; but we do it much better in Eng- 
land." So saying he threw a whole glass of 
wine in the Prince's face. " II a bien fait, mon 
Prince," cried an old General present, "vous 
l'avez commence." (He has done right, my 
Prince ; you commenced it.) The Prince had the 
good sense to acquiesce in the decision of the vet- 
eran, and Oglethorpe's retort in kind was taken 
in good part. 

It was probably at the close of this story that 
the officious Boswell, ever anxious to promote 
conversation for the benefit of his note-book, 
started the question whether duelling were consist- 
ent with moral duty. The old General fired up 
in an instant. " Undoubtedly," said he, with a 
lofty air ; " undoubtedly a man has a right to 
defend his honor." Goldsmith immediately car- 
ried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and 
pinned him with the question, " what he would 
do if affronted ? " The pliant Boswell, who for 
the moment had the fear of the General rather 
than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, " he 
should think it necessary to fight." " Wny, then, 
that solves the question," replied Goldsmith 



312 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" No* sir ! " thundered out Johnson ; " it does not 
follow that what a man would do, is therefore 
right." He, however, subsequently went into a 
discussion to show that there were necessities in 
the case arising out of the artificial refinement of 
society, and its proscription of any one who 
should put up with an affront without fighting a 
duel. " He then," concluded he, " who fights a 
duel does not fight from passion against his 
antagonist, but out of self-defence, to avert the 
stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from 
being driven out of society. I could wish there 
were not that superfluity of refinement; but 
while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may 
lawfully fight a duel." 

Another question started was, whether people 
who disagreed on a capital point could live to- 
gether in friendship. Johnson said they might. 
Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not 
the idem velle atque idem nolle — the same lik- 
ings and aversions. Johnson rejoined, that they 
must shun the subject on which they disagreed. 
"But, sir," said Goldsmith, "when people live 
together who have something as to which they 
disagree, and which they want to shun, they will 
be in the situation mentioned in the story of Blue 
Beard : ' you may look into all the chambers but 
one ; ' but we should have the greatest inclination 
to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." 
" Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, " I am 
not saying that you could live in friendship with 
a man from whom you differ as to some point ; J 
am only saying that 1 could do it." 



GHOST STORIES. 313 

Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best 
of this petty contest ? How just was his remark ! 
how felicitous the illustration of the blue cham- 
ber ! how rude and overbearing was the argu- 
mentum ad hominem of Johnson, when he felt 
that he had the vvorst of the argument ! 

The conversation turned upon ghosts. Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe told the story of a Colonel Pren- 
dergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's 
army, who predicted among his comrades that he 
should die on a certain day. The battle of Mal- 
plaquet took place on that day. The Colonel was 
in the midst of it, but came out unhurt. The 
hring had ceased, and his brother officers j'ested 
with him about the fallacy of his prediction. " The 
day is not over," replied he, gravely ; " I shall 
die notwithstanding what you see." His words 
proved true. The order for a cessation of firing 
had not reached one of the French batteries, and 
a random shot from it killed the Colonel on the 
spot. Among his effects was found a pocket-book 
in which he had made a solemn entry, that Sir 
John Friend, who had been executed for high 
treason, had appeared to him, either in a dream 
or vision, and predicted that he would meet him 
on a certain day (the very day of the battle). 
Colonel Cecil, who took possession of the effects 
of Colonel Prendergast, and read the entry in the 
pocket-book, told this story to Pope, the poet, in 
the presence of General Oglethorpe. 

This story, as related by the General, appears 
to have been well received, if not credited, by 
both Johnson and Goldsmith, each of whom had 



314 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

something to relate in kind. Goldsmith's broth- 
er, the clergyman in whom he had such implicit 
confidence, had assured him of his having seen an 
apparition. Johnson also had a friend, old Mr. 
Cave, the printer, at St. John's Gate, "an honest 
man, and a sensible man," who told him he had 
seen a ghost ; he did not, however, like to talk of 
it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever it 
was mentioned. " And pray, sir," asked Boswell, 
" what did he say was the appearance ? " " Why, 
sir, something of a shadowy being." 

The reader will not be surprised at this super- 
stitious turn in the conversation of such intelli- 
gent men, when he recollects that, but a few years 
before this time, all London had been agitated by 
the absurd story of the Cock-lane ghost ; a matter 
which Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his 
serious investigation, and about which Goldsmith 
had written a pamphlet. 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Mr. Joseph Cradock. — An Author's Confidings. — An Aman- 
uensis. — Life at Edgeware. — Goldsmith Conjuring. — 
George Colman. — The Fantoccini. 

?j%M|||MONG the agreeable acquaintances made 
)ffiM±Sks by Goldsmith about this time was a Mr. 
f^k^^M Joseph Cradock, a young gentleman of 
Leicestershire, living at his ease, but disposed to 
" make himself uneasy," by meddling with litera- 
ture and the theatre ; in fact, he had a passion for 
plays and players, and had come up to town with 
a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of 
" Zobeide," in a view to get it acted. There was 
no great difficulty in the case, as he was a man 
of fortune, had letters of introduction to persons 
of note, and was altogether in a different position 
from the indigent man of genius whom managers 
might harass with impunity. Goldsmith met him 
at the house of Yates, the actor, and finding that 
he was a friend of Lord Clare, soon became soci- 
able with him. Mutual tastes quickened the in- 
timacy, especially as they found means of serving 
each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the 
tragedy of " Zobeide " ; and Cradock, who was an 
amateur musician, arranged the music for the 
" Threnodia Augustalis," a Lament on the death 
•jt thq Princess Dowager of Wales, the political 



3JG OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

mistress and patron of Lord Clare, which Gold- 
smith had thrown off hastily to please that noble- 
man. The tragedy was played with some suc- 
cess at Covent Garden ; the Lament was recited 
and sung at Mrs. Cornelys' rooms ■ — a very fash- 
ionable resort in Solio Square, got up by a wo- 
man of enterprise of that name. It was in whim- 
sical parody of those gay and somewhat promis- 
cuous assemblages that Goldsmith used to call 
the motley evening parties at his lodgings " little 
Cornelys." 

The " Threnodia Augustalis " was not publicly 
known to be by Goldsmith until several years 
after his death. 

Cradock was one of the few polite intimates 
who felt more disposed to sympathize with the 
generous qualities of the poet than to sport with 
his eccentricities. He sought his society when- 
ever he came to town, and occasionally had him 
to his seat in the country. Goldsmith appreciated 
his sympathy, and unburdened himself to him 
without reserve. Seeing the lettered ease in 
which this amateur author was enabled to live, 
and the time he could bestow on the elaboration 
of a manuscript, " Ah ! Mr. Cradock," cried he, 
''think of me, that must write a volume every 
month ! " He complained to him of the attempts 
made by inferior writers, and by others who could 
scarcely come under that denomination, not only 
to abuse and depreciate his writings, but to render 
him ridiculous as a man ; perverting every harm- 
less sentiment and action into charges of absurdity, 
malice, or folly. " Sir," said he, in the fulness of 
bis heart, " I am as a lion baited by curs ! " 



RECOLLECTIONS OF MCDONNELL. 317 

Another acquaintance, which he made about 
this time, was a young countryman of the name 
of M'Donnell, whom he met in a state of destitu- 
tion, and, of course, befriended. The following 
grateful recollections of his kindness and his 
merits were furnished by that person in after 
years : — 

" It was in the year 1772," writes he, " that 
the death of my elder brother — when in London, 
on my way to Ireland — left me in a most forlorn 
situation ; I was then about eighteen ; I possessed 
neither friends nor money, nor the means of get- 
ting to Ireland, of which or of England I knew 
scarcely anything, from having so long resided in 
France. In this situation I had strolled about 
for two or three days, considering what to do, but 
unable to come to any determination, when Prov- 
idence directed me to the Temple Gardens. I 
threw myself on a seat, and, willing to forget my 
miseries for a moment, drew out a book ; that 
book was a volume of Boileau. I had not been 
there long when a gentleman, strolling about, 
passed near me, and observing, perhaps, some- 
thing Irish or foreign in my garb or countenance, 
addressed me : ' Sir, you seem studious ; I hope 
you find this a favorable place to pursue it.' 
i Not very studious, sir ; I fear it is the want of 
society that brings me hither ; I am solitary and 
unknown in this metropolis ; ' and a passage from 
Cicero — Oratio pro Archia — occurring to me, 
I quoted it : ' Hose studia pernoctant nobiscum, 
peregrinantur, rusticantur.' ' You are a scholar, 
too, sir, I perceive.' ' A piece of one, sir ; but I 



318 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ought still to have been in the college where I 
had the good fortune to pick up the little I know/ 
A good deal of conversation ensued ; I told him 
part of my history, and he, in return, gave his 
address in the Temple, desiring me to call soon, 
from which, to my infinite surprise and gratifica- 
tion, I found that the person who thus seemed to 
take an interest in my fate was my countryman 
and a distinguished ornament of letters. 

" I did not fail to keep the appointment, and 
was received in the kindest manner. He told 
me, smilingly, that he was not rich ; that he could 
do little for me in direct pecuniary aid, but would 
endeavor to put me in the way of doing some- 
thing for myself; observing, that he could at least 
furnish me with advice not wholly useless to a 
young man placed in the heart of a great metrop- 
olis. ' In London,' he continued, ' nothing is to 
be got for nothing ; you must work ; and no man 
who chooses to be industrious need be under obli- 
gations to another, for here labor of every kind 
commands its reward. If you think proper to 
assist me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall be 
obliged, and you will be placed under no obliga- 
tion, until something more permanent can be 
secured for you.' This employment, which I 
pursued for some time, was to translate passages 
from BufFon, which were abridged or altered, ac- 
cording to circumstances, for his ' Natural His- 
tory.' " 

Goldsmith's literary tasks were fast getting 
ahead of him, and he began now to " toil after 
them in vain." 



LIFE AT EDGE WARE. 319 

Five volumes of the " Natural History " here 
spoken of had long since been paid for by Mr. 
Griffin, yet most of them were still to be written. 
His young amanuensis bears testimony to his 
embarrassments and perplexities, but to the de- 
gree of equanimity with which he bore them : — 

" It has been said," observes he, " that he was 
irritable. Such may have been the case at times ; 
nay, I believe it was so ; for what with the con- 
tinual pursuit of authors, printers, and booksellers, 
and occasional pecuniary embarrassments, few 
could have avoided exhibiting similar marks of 
impatience. But it was never so towards me. I 
saw him only in his bland and kind moods, with 
a flow, perhaps an overflow, of the milk of human 
kindness for all who were in any manner depen- 
dent upon him. I looked upon him with awe 
and veneration, and he upon me as a kind parent 
upon a child. 

" His manner and address exhibited much 
frankness and cordiality, particularly to those with 
whom he possessed any degree of intimacy. His 
good-nature was equally apparent. You could 
not dislike the man, although several of his follies 
and foibles you might be tempted to condemn. 
He was generous and inconsiderate ; money with 
him had little value." 

To escape from many of the tormentors just 
alluded to, and to devote himself without inter- 
ruption to his task, Goldsmith took lodgings for 
the summer at a farm-house near the six-mile 
stone on the Edge ware road, and carried down 
his books iu two return post-chaises. He used to 
21 



320 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

say he believed the farmer's family thought him 
an odd character, similar to that in which the Spec- 
tator appeared to his landlady and her children ; 
he was The Gentleman. Bos well tells us that he 
went to visit him at the place in company with 
Mickle, translator of the " Lusiad." Goldsmith 
was not at home. Having a curiosity to see his 
apartment, however, they went in, and found 
curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled 
upon the wall with a black lead pencil. 

The farm-house in question is still in exist- 
ence, though much altered. It stands upon a 
gentle eminence in Hyde Lane, commanding a 
pleasant prospect towards Hendon. The room is 
still pointed out in which " She Stoops to Con- 
quer " was written ; a convenient and airy apart- 
ment, up one flight of stairs. 

Some matter-of-fact traditions concerning the 
author were furnished, a few years since, by a son 
of the farmer, who was sixteen years of age at 
the time Goldsmith resided with his father. 
Though he had engaged to board with the family, 
his meals were generally sent to him in his room, 
in which he passed the most of his time, negli- 
gently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily 
engaged in writing. Sometimes, probably when 
in moods of composition, he would wander into 
the kitchen, without noticing any one, stand mus- 
ing with his back to the fire, and then hurry off 
again to his room, no doubt to commit to papei 
some thought which had struck him. 

Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or waa 
to he seen loitering and reading and musing un- 



LIFE AT EDGE WARE. &->l 

der the hedges. He was subject to fits of wake- 
fulness, and read much in bed ; if not disposed to 
read, he still kept the candle burning ; if he 
wished to extinguish it, and it was out of his 
reach, he flung his slipper at it, which would be 
found in the morning near the overturned candle- 
stick and daubed with grease. He was noted 
here, as everywhere else, for his charitable feel- 
ings. No beggar applied to him in vain, and he 
evinced on all occasions great commiseration for 
the poor. 

He had the use of the parlor to receive and 
entertain company, and was visited by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, Hugh Boyd, the reputed author of " Ju- 
nius," Sir William Chambers, and other distin- 
guished characters. He gave occasionally, though 
rarely, a dinner-party ; and on one occasion, when 
his guests were detained by a thunder-shower, 
he got up a dance, and carried the merriment late 
into the night. 

As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity 
among the young, and at one time took the chil- 
dren of the house to see a company of strolling 
players at Hendon. The greatest amusement to 
the party, however, was derived from his own 
jokes on the road and his comments on the per- 
formance, which produced infinite laughter among 
his youthful companions. 

Near to his rural retreat at Edgeware, a Mr. 
Seguin, an Irish merchant, of literary tastes, had 
country quarters for his family, where Goldsmith 
was always welcome. 

In this family he would indulge in playful and 



822 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

even grotesque humor, and was ready for any- 
thing — conversation, music, or a game of romps. 
He prided himself upon his dancing, and would 
walk a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite 
amusement of herself and the children, whose 
shouts of laughter he bore with perfect good-hu- 
mor. He would sing Irish songs, and the Scotch 
ballad of " Johnny Armstrong." He took the lead 
in the children's sports of blind-man's-buff, hunt 
the slipper, &c, or in their games at cards, and 
was the most noisy of the party, affecting to cheat 
and to be excessively eager to win ; while with 
children of smaller size he would turn the hind 
part of his wig before, and play all kinds of tricks 
to amuse them. 

One word as to his musical skill and his per- 
formance on the flute, which comes up so invari- 
ably in all his fireside revels. He really knew 
nothing of music scientifically ; he had a good 
ear, and may have played sweetly ; but we are 
told he could not read a note of music. Roubil- 
lac, the statuary, once played a trick upon him in 
this respect. He pretended to score down an air 
as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and 
semibreves at random. When he had finished, 
Goldsmith cast his eyes over it and pronounced 
it correct ! It is possible that his execution in 
music was like his style in writing ; in sweetness 
and melody he may have snatched a grace beyond 
the reach of art ! 

He was at all times a capital companion foi 
children, and knew how to fall in with their hu- 
mors. " I little thought," said Miss Hawkins, 



GEORGE COLMAN. — CONJURING. 323 

the woman grown, " what I should have to boast 
when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill 
by two bits of paper on his fingers." He enter- 
tained Mrs. Garrick, we are told, with a whole 
budget of stories and songs ; delivered the " Chim- 
ney Sweep " with exquisite taste as a solo ; and 
performed a duet with Garrick of " Old Rose and 
Burn the Bellows." 

" I was only five years old," says the late 
George Colman, " when Goldsmith one evening, 
when drinking coffee with my father, took me on 
his knee and began to piay with me, which ami- 
able act I returned with a very smart slap in the 
face ; it must have been a tingler, for I left the 
marks of my little spiteful paw upon his cheek. 
This infantile outrage was followed by summary 
justice, and I was locked up by my father in an 
adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment 
in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream 
most abominably. At length a friend appeared 
to extricate me from jeopardy ; it was the good- 
natured Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in 
his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, 
which was still partially red from the effects of 
my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fon- 
dled and soothed until I began to brighten. He 
seized the propitious moment, placed three hats 
upon the carpet, and a shilling under each ; the 
shillings, he told me, were England, France, and 
Spain. ' Hey, presto, cockolorum ! ' cried the 
Doctor, and, lo ! on uncovering the shillings, they 
were all found congregated under one. I was no 
politician at the time, and therefore might not 



321 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

have wondered at the sudden revolution which 
brought England, France, and Spain all under 
one crown ; but, as I was also no conjurer, it 
amazed me beyond measure. From that time, 
whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, 

" ' I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile ;' 

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were 
always cordial friends and merry playfellows." 

Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farm- 
house his headquarters for the summer, he would 
absent himself for weeks at a time on visits to 
Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, at 
their country-seats. He would often visit town, 
also, to dine and partake of the public amuse- 
ments. On one occasion he accompanied Ed- 
mund Burke to witness a performance of the Ital- 
ian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton Street ; an 
exhibition which had hit the caprice of the town, 
and was in a great vogue. „ The puppets were set 
in motion by wires, so well concealed as to be 
with difficulty detected. Bos well, with his usual 
obtuseness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses 
him of being jealous of the puppets ! " When 
Burke," said he, " praised the dexterity with 
which one of them tossed a pike, ' Pshaw,' said 
Goldsmith with some warmth, ' I can do it better 
myself.' " " The same evening," adds Boswell, 
4< when supping at Burke's lodgings, he broke his 
shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how 
much better lie could jump over a stick than the 
puppets." 

Goldsmith jealous of puppets ! This even 



THE PUPPET-SHOW. 



f\:>K 



passes in absurdity Boswell's charge upon him of 
being jealous of the beauty of the two Miss 
Hornecks. 

The Panton-Street puppets were destined to be 
a source of further amusement to the town, and 
of annoyance to the little autocrat of the stage. 
Foote, the Aristophanes of the English drama, 
who was always on the alert to turn every sub- 
ject of popular excitement to account, seeing the 
success of the Fantoccini, gave out that he should 
produce a Primitive Puppet-Show at the Hay- 
market, to be entitled " The Handsome Chamber- 
maid, or Piety in Pattens " ; intended to bur- 
lesque the sentimental comedy which Garrick still 
maintained at Drury Lane. The idea of a play 
to be performed in a regular theatre by puppets 
excited the curiosity and talk of the town. " Will 
your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Foote ? " de- 
manded a lady of rank. " Oh, no, my lady," re- 
plied Foote, " not much larger than Garrick? 





CHAPTER XXXV. 

Broken Health. — Dissipation and Debts. — The Irish Wid- 
ow. — Practical Jokes. — Scrub. — A misquoted Pun. — 
Malagrida. — Goldsmith proved to be a Fool. — Distressed 
Ballad-Singers. — The Poet at Ranelagh. 

OLDSMITH returned to town in the 
autumn (1772), with his health much 
disordered. His close fits of sedentary 
application, during which he in a manner tied 
himself to the mast, had laid the seeds of a lurk- 
ing malady in his system, and produced a severe 
illness in the course of the summer. Town-life 
was not favorable to the health either of body or 
mind. He could not resist the siren voice of 
temptation, which, now that he had become a 
notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accord- 
ingly we find him launching away in a career of 
social dissipation ; dining and supping out ; at 
clubs, at routs, at theatres ; he is a guest with 
Johnson at the Thrales, and an object of Mrs. 
Thrale's lively sallies ; he is a lion at Mrs. 
Vesey's and Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the 
high-bred blue-stockings pronounce him a " wild 
genius," and others, perad venture, a " wild Irish- 
man." In the mean time his pecuniary difficul- 
ties are increasing upon him, conflicting with his 
proneness to pleasure and expense, and contrib- 
uting by the harassment of his mind to the wear 



DISSIPATION AND DEBTS. 327 

.nnd tear of his constitution. His " Animated 
Nature," though not finished, has been entirely 
paid for, and the money spent. The money ad- 
vanced by Garrick on Newbery's note, still hangs 
over him as a debt. The tale on which Newbery 
had loaned from two to three hundred pounds 
previous to the excursion to Barton, has proved a 
failure. The bookseller is urgent for the settle- 
ment of his complicated account ; the perplexed 
author has nothing to offer him in liquidation but 
the copyright of the comedy which he has in his 
portfolio ; '• Though, to tell you the truth, Frank," 
said he, " there are great doubts of its success." 
The offer was accepted, and, like bargains wrung 
from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned 
out a golden speculation to the bookseller. 

In this way Goldsmith went on " overrunning 
the constable," as he termed it ; spending every- 
thing in advance ; working with an overtasked 
head and weary heart to pay for past pleasures 
and past extravagance, and at the same time in- 
curring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and 
darken his future prospects. While the excite- 
ment of society and the excitement of composition 
conspire to keep up a feverishness of the system, 
he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking 
himself with James's powders, a fashionable pa- 
nacea of the day. 

A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and 
entitled " The Irish Widow," perpetuates the 
memory of practical jokes played off a year or 
two previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, 
simple-hearted Goldsmith. He was one evening 



328 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

at the house of his friend Burke, when he was 
beset by a tenth muse, an Irish widow and 
authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full of brogue 
and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole gen- 
tility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her 
poems, and assailed Goldsmith for his patronage ; 
the great Goldsmith — her countryman, and of 
course her friend. She overpowered him with 
eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some 
of her own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, 
appealing continually to the great Goldsmith to 
know how he relished them. 

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind - hearted 
and gallant gentleman could do in such a case ; 
he praised her poems as far as the stomach of his 
sense would permit — perhaps a little further ; he 
offered her his subscription ; and it was not until 
she had retired with many parting compliments 
to the great Goldsmith, that he pronounced the 
poetry which had been inflicted on him execra- 
ble. The whole scene had been a hoax got up 
by Burke for the amusement of his company ; and 
the Irish widow, so admirably performed, had 
been personated by a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his 
connection, of great sprightliness and talent. 

We see nothing in the story to establish the 
alleged vanity of Goldsmith, but we think it (ells 
rather to the disadvantage of Burke, — being 
unwarrantable under their relations of friend- 
ship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his 
genius. 

Croker, in his notes to Bos well, gives another 
of these practical jokes perpetrated by Burke at 



PRACTICAL JOKES. 329 

the expense of Goldsmith's credulity. It was 
related to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan 
Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. 
The Colonel and Burke, walking one day through 
Leicester Square on their way to Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's, with whom they were to dine, ob- 
served Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a 
guest, standing and regarding a crowd which was 
staring and shouting at some foreign ladies in the 
window of a hotel. " Observe Goldsmith," said 
Burke to O'Moore, " and mark what passes be- 
tween us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and 
reached there before him. Burke received Gold- 
smith with affected reserve and coldness ; being 
pressed to explain the reason, " Really," said he, 
" I am ashamed to keep company with a person 
who could act as you have just done in the 
Square." Goldsmith protested he was ignorant 
of what was meant. " Why," said Burke, " did 
you not exclaim^ as you were looking up at those 
women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for 
staring with such admiration at those painted 
Jezebels, while a man of your talents passed by 
unnoticed ? " " Surely, surely, my dear friend," 
cried Goldsmith, with alarm, " surely I did not 
say so ? " ** Nay," replied Burke, " if you had 
not said so, how should I have known it ? " 
" That 's true," answered Goldsmith, " I am very 
sorry — it was very foolish : / do recollect that 
something of the kind passed through my mind, but 
I did not think I had uttered it." 

It is proper to observe that these jokes were 
played off by Burke before he had attained the 



330 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

full eminence of his social position, and that he 
may have felt privileged to take liberties with 
Goldsmith as his countryman and college associ- 
ate. It is evident, however, that the peculiari- 
ties of the latter, and his guileless simplicity, 
made him a butt for the broad waggery of some 
of his associates ; while others more polished 
though equally perfidious, were on the watch to 
give currency to his bulls and blunders. 

The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakspeare, 
where Bos well had made a fool of himself, was 
still in every one's mind. It was sportively sug- 
gested that a fete should be held at Litchfield in 
honor of Johnson and Garrick, and that the 
" Beaux Stratagem " should be played by the 
members of the Literary Club. " Then," ex- 
claimed Goldsmith, " I shall certainly play Scrub. 
I should like of all things to try my hand at that 
character." The unwary speech, which any one 
else might have made without comment, has been 
thought worthy of record as whimsically charac- 
teristic. Beauclerc was extremely apt to circu- 
late anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on 
some trivial incident, but dressed up with the 
embellishments of his sarcastic brain. One re- 
lates to a venerable dish of peas, served up at 
Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, 
but were any other color. A wag suggested to 
Goldsmith, in a whisper, that they should be sent 
to Hammersmith, as that was the way to turn-em- 
qrecn (Turnham Green). Goldsmith, delighted 
with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's 
table, but missed the point. " That is the way 



MALAGRIDA. S3] 

to make 'em green," said he. Nobody laughed. 
He perceived he was at fault. " I mean that is 
the road to turn 'em green." A dead pause and 
a stare ; — " whereupon," adds Beauclerc, kt he 
started up disconcerted and abruptly left the 
table." This is evidently one of Beauclerc's car- 
icatures. 

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc 
were seated at the theatre next to Lord Shel- 
burne, the minister, whom political writers thought 
proper to nickname Malagrida. " Do you know," 
said Goldsmith to his lordship, in the course of 
conversation, " that I never could conceive why 
they call you Malagrida, for Malagrida was a 
very good sort of man." This was too good a trip 
of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass : he serves 
it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as 
a specimen of a mode of turning a thought the 
wrong way, peculiar to the poet ; he makes merry 
over it with his witty and sarcastic compeer, 
Horace Walpole, who pronounces it " a picture 
of Goldsmith's whole life." «Dr. Johnson alone, 
when he hears it bandied about as Goldsmith's 
last blunder, growls forth a friendly defence: 
" Sir," said he, " it was a mere blunder in em- 
phasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should 
use Malagrida as a term of reproach." Poor 
Goldsmith ! On such points he was ever doomed 
to be misinterpreted. Rogers, the poet, meeting 
in times long subsequent with a survivor from 
those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was 
in conversation. The old conventional character 
was too deeply stamped in the memory of the vet 



332 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

eran to be effaced. " Sir," replied the old wiseacre 
"he was a fool. The right word never came 
to him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, 
he 'd say, Why, it 's as good a shilling as ever was 
horn. You know he oucrht to have said coined 
Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was a 
fool, si?\" 

We have so many anecdotes in which Gold- 
Smith's simplicity is played upon, that it is quite 
a treat to meet with one in which he is repre- 
sented playing upon the simplicity of others, espe- 
cially when the victim of his joke is the " Great 
Cham " himself, whom all others are disposed to 
hold so much in awe. Goldsmith and Johnson 
were supping cosily, together at a tavern in Dean 
Street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at 
Drury Lane, and a protege of Garrick's. John- 
son delighted in these gastronomical tete-a-tetes, 
and was expatiating in high good-humor on a dish 
of rumps and kidneys, the veins of his forehead 
swelling with the ardor of mastication. " These," 
said he, " are pretty little things ; but a man must 
eat a great many of them before he is filled." 
" Aye ; but how many of them," asked Goldsmith, 
with affected simplicity, " would reach to the 
moon ? " " To the moon ! Ah, sir, that, I fear, 
exceeds your calculation." " Not at all, sir ; I 
think I could tell." " Pray, then, sir, let us hear." 
a Why, sir, one, if it were long enough I " John- 
son growled for a time at finding himself caught 
in such a trite schoolboy trap. " Well, sir," cried 
he at length, " I have deserved it. I should not 
have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish 
a question/' 



BALLAD-SINGERS. 333 

Among the many incidents related as illustrative 
of Goldsmith's canity and envy is one vvhich oc- 
curred one evening when he was in a drawing- 
room with a party of ladies, and a ballad-singer 
under the window struck up his favorite song of 
" Sally Salisbury." " How miserably this woman 
sings ! " exclaimed he. " Pray, Doctor," said the 
lady of the house, "could you do it better?" 
" Yes, madam, and the company shall be judges." 
The company, of course, prepared to be enter- 
tained by an absurdity ; but their smiles were 
wellnigh turned to tears, for he acquitted himself 
with a skill and pathos that drew universal ap- 
plause. He had, in fact, a delicate ear for music, 
which had been jarred by the false notes of the 
ballad-singer ; and there were certain pathetic bal- 
lads, associated with recollections of his childhood, 
which were sure to touch the springs of his heart. 
We have another story of him, connected with 
ballad-singing, which is still more characteristic. 
He was one evening at the house of Sir William 
Chambers, in Berners Street, seated at a whist- 
table with Sir William, Lady Chambers, and Ba- 
retti, when all at once he threw down his cards, 
hurried out of the room and into the street. He 
returned in an instant, resumed his seat, and the 
game went on. Sir William, after a little hesita- 
tion, ventured to ask the cause of his retreat, fear- 
ing he had been overcome by the heat of the room. 
" Not at all," replied Goldsmith ; « but in truth I 
could not bear to hear that unfortunate woman in 
the street, half singing, half sobbing, for such ton<?s 
eould only arise from the extremity of distress" ; 



334 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

her voice grated painfully on ray ear and jarred 
my frame, so that I could not rest until I had 
sent her away." It was in fact a poor ballad- 
singer whose cracked voice had been heard by 
others of the party, but without having the same 
effect on their sensibilities. It was the reality of 
his fictitious scene in the story of the " Man in 
Black " ; wherein he describes a woman in rags, 
with one child in her arms and another on her 
back, attempting to sing ballads, but with such 
a mournful voice that it was difficult to determine 
whether she was singing or crying. " A wretch," 
he adds, " who, in the deepest distress, still aimed 
at good-humor, was an object my friend was by 
no means capable of withstanding." The " Man 
in Black" gave the poor woman all that he had 
— a bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is proba- 
ble, sent his ballad-singer away rejoicing, with all 
the money in his pocket. 

Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as 
a place of public entertainment. It was situated 
near Chelsea*; the principal room was a Rotunda 
of great dimensions, with an orchestra in the centre, 
and tiers of boxes all round. It was a place to 
which Johnson resorted occasionally. " I am a 
great friend to public amusements," said he, " for 
they keep people from vice." * Goldsmith was 

* "Alas, sir!" said. Johnson, speaking, when in another 
mood, of grand houses, fine gardens, and splendid places of 
public amusement; "alas, sir! these are only struggles for 
happiness. When I first entered Ranelagh it gave an ex- 
pansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never ex- 
perienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he 
viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of 



MASQUERADING. 335 

equally a friend to them, though perhaps not alto- 
gether on such moral grounds. He was particularly- 
fond of masquerades, which were then exceedingly 
popular, and got up at Ranelagh with great expense 
and magnificence. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had 
likewise a taste for such amusements, was some- 
times his companion ; at other times he went alone ; 
tiis peculiarities of person and manner would soon 
betray him, whatever might be his disguise, and 
he would be singled out by wags, acquainted with 
his foibles, and more successful than himself in 
maintaining their incognito, as a capital subject to 
be played upon. Some, pretending not to know 
him, would decry his writings, and praise those of 
his contemporaries ; others would laud his verses 
to the skies, but purposely misquote and burlesque 
them ; others would annoy him with parodies ; 
while one young lady, whom he was teasing, as 
he supposed, with great success and infinite hu- 
mor, silenced his rather boisterous laughter by 
quoting his own line about " the loud laugh that 
speaks the vacant mind." On one occasion he 
was absolutely driven out of the house by the 
persevering jokes of a wag, whose complete dis- 
guise gave him no means of retaliation. 

His name appearing in the newspapers among 
the distinguished persons present at one of these 
amusements, his old enemy, Kenrick, immediately 

that great multitude would be alive a hundred years after- 
wards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was 
not one in all that brilliant circle that was net afraid to go 
home and think." 

''22 



336 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

addressed to him a, copy of anonymous verses, to 
the following purport. 

TO DR. GOLDSMITH; 

ON SEEING HIS NAME IN THE LIST OF MUMMERS AT TIT? 
LATE MASQUERADE. 

" How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways 
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient days ! 
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades, 
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades. 
So changed the times! say, philosophic sage, 
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age, 
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene, 
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene ? 
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow, 
Inspired by th' Aganippe of Soho ? 
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli, 
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly ? 
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause, 
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause? 
Is this the good that makes the humble vain, 
The good philosophy should not disdain ? 
If so, let pride dissemble all it can, 
A modern sage is still much less than man." 

Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of 
the kind, and meeting Kenrick at the Chapter 
Coffee-House, called him to sharp account for tak- 
ing such liberty with his name, and calling his 
morals in question, merely on account of his being 
seen at a place of general resort and amusement. 
Kenrick shuffled and sneaked, protesting that he 
meant nothing derogatory to his private character. 
Goldsmith let him know, however, that he was 
aware of his having more than once indul^d in 
attacks of this dastard kind, and intimated that 
another such outrage would be followed by per- 
sonal chastisement. 



NOVEL MODE OF EXERCISE. 33 

Kenrick, having played the craven in his pres- 
ence, avenged himself as soon as he was gone by 
complaining of his having made a wanton attack 
upon him, and by making coarse comments upon 
his writings, conversation, and person. 

The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however un- 
merited, may have checked Goldsmith's taste for 
masquerades. Sir Joshua Reynolds, calling on the 
poet one morning, found him walking about his 
room in somewhat of a reverie, kicking a bundle 
of clothes before him like a football. It proved 
to be an expensive masquerade dress, which he 
said he had been fool enough to purchase, and as 
there was no other way of getting the worth of 
his money, he was trying to take it out in exer- 
cise. 





CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Invitation to Christmas. — The Spring- Velvet Coat. — The 
Haymaking Wig. — The Mischances of Loo. — The Fail 
Culprit — A Dance with the Jessamy Bride. 

•fcfpgjgROM the feverish dissipations of town, 




Goldsmith is summoned away to partake 
s^CSti of the genial dissipations of the country. 
In the month of December, a letter from Mrs. Bun- 
bury invites him down to Burton, to pass the Christ- 
mas holidays. The letter is written in the usual 
playful vein which marks his intercourse with this 
charming family. He is to come in his " smart 
spring-velvet coat," to bring a new wig to dance 
with the haymakers in, and above all to follow 
the advice of herself and her sister, (the Jessamy 
Bride,) in playing loo. This letter, which plays 
so archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Gold- 
smith's peculiarities, and bespeaks such real lady- 
like regard for him, requires a word or two of 
annotation. The spring-velvet suit alluded tc 
appears to have been a gallant adornment, (some- 
what in the style of the famous bloom-colored 
coat,) in which Goldsmith had figured in the pre- 
ceding month of May — the season of blossoms : 
for, on the 21st of that month, we find the follow- 
ing entry in the chronicle of Mr. William Filby, 
tailor : To your blue velvet suit, £21 10s. 9d. Also, 



TEL SPRING-VELVET COAT. 339 

about the same time, a suit of livery and a crimson 
collar for the serving-man. Again we hold the 
Jessamy Bride responsible for this gorgeous splen- 
dor of wardrobe. 

The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and soli- 
taire, still highly the mode, and in which Gold 
smith is represented as figuring when in full dress 
equipped with his sword. 

As to the dancing with the haymakers, we pre- 
sume it alludes to some gambol of the poet, in the 
course of his former visit to Barton ; when he 
ranged the fields and lawns a chartered libertine, 
and tumbled into the fish-ponds. 

As to the suggestions about loo, they are in 
sportive allusion to the Doctor's mode of playing 
that game in their merry evening parties ; affect- 
ing the desperate gambler and easy dupe ; run- 
ning counter to all rule ; making extravagant 
ventures ; reproaching all others with cowardice ; 
dashing at all hazards at the pool, and getting 
himself completely loo'd, to the great amusement 
of the company. The drift of the fair sisters' ad- 
vice was most probably to tempt him on, and 
then leave him in the lurch. 

With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's 
icply to Mrs. Bunbury, a fine piece of off-hand, 
humorous writing, which has but in late years 
been given to the public, and which throws, a 
familiar light on the social circle at Barton. 

" Madam, — I read your letter with all that 
allowance which critical candor could require, but 
after all find so much to object to, and so much 
10 raise my indignation, that I cannot help giv- 



340 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ing it a serious answer. — I am not so ignorant, 
madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms 
contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecism 
is a word that comes from the town of Soleis 
in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and 
applied as we use the word Kidderminster for 
curtains from a town also of that name ; — but 
this is learning you have no taste for !) — I say, 
madam, that there are many sarcasms in it, and 
solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured 
critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words,, 
and give you my remarks upon them as they 
occur. You begin as follows : — 

" I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 
And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, 
To open our ball the first day of the year.' 

" Pray, madam, where did you ever find the 
epithet ' good,' applied to the title of doctor ? 
Had you called me ' learned doctor,' or ' grave 
doctor,' or ' noble doctor,' it might be allowable, 
because they belong to the profession. But, not 
to cavil at trifles, you talk of my ' spring-velvet 
coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in 
the year, that is, in the middle of winter ! — a 
spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter ! ! ! 
That would be a solecism indeed ! and yet to in- 
crease the inconsistency, in another part of your 
letter you call me a beau. Now, on one side or 
other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau, I can 
never think of wearing a spring-velvet in winter ; 
and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains 
itself. But let me go on to your two 
strange lines : — 



LETTER TO MRS. BUNBURY. 341 

" ' And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, 
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.' 

" The absurdity of making hay at Christmas 
you yourself seem sensible of: you say your sis- 
ter will laugh; and so indeed she well may! 
The Latins have an expression for a contemptu- 
ous kind of laughter, ' naso contemnere adunco ; ' 
that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may 
laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if 
she thinks fit. But now I come to the most ex- 
traordinary of all extraordinary propositions, — 
which is, to take your and your sister's advice in 
playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises 
my indignation beyond the bounds of prose ; it 
inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I 
take advice ! and from whom ? You shall hear. 

" First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 
The company set, and the word to be Loo : 
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, . 
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 
At never once finding a visit from Pam. 
I lay down my stake, apparently cool, 
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, 
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I : 
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 
By losing their money to venture at fame. 
'T is in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 
'T is in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold : 
All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . 
'What does Mrs. Bunbury? ' . . 'I, Sir? I pass.' 
' Pray what does Miss Horneck ? take courage, come do/ . 
' Who, I ? — let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' 
Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil, 
To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 



342 OLIVER L0LDSM1TR. 

Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 

Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 

I venture at all, while my avarice regards 

The whole pool as my own. . . 4 Come, give me five cards.' 

' Well done ! ' cry the ladies ; ' ah, Doctor, that 's good! 

The pool 's very rich, . . ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! ' 

Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 

I ask for advice from the lady that 's next: 

4 Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice; 

Don't you think the best way is to venture for 't twice? 

' I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . 

' Ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! Come, Doctor, put down.' 

Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager, 

And so bold, and so bold, I 'm at last a bold beggar. 

Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in, 

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before 

Fielding : 
For giving advice that is not worth a straw, 
May well be call'd picking of pockets in law; 
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye, 
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. 
What justice, when both to the Old Baily brought! 
By the gods, I '11 enjoy it, tho' 't is but in thought! 
Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum, 
With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em; 
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, 
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 
When uncover' d, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 
' Pray what are their crimes'?' . . 'They've been pilfering 

found.' 
1 But, pray, who have they pilfer' d? ' . . ' A doctor, I hear.' 
What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near ? ' 
The same.' . . ' What a pity! how does it surprise one, 
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on! ' ^ 
Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leei 

ing, 
To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 
First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung, 
Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.' 
' The younger the worse,' I return him again, 
'It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 



THE FAIR CULPRITS. 343 

1 But then they 're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.' 
' What signifies handsome, when people are thieves? ' 
' But where is your justice? their cases are hard.' 
' What signifies justice 1 } I want the reward. 

" ' There 's the parish of Edmonton offers forty 
pounds ; there 's the parish of St. Leonard Shore- 
ditch offers forty pounds ; there 's the parish of 
Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the-pound to St. Giles's 
watch-house, offers forty pounds, — I shall have 
all that if I convict them ! ' — 

" ' But consider their case, . . it may yet be your own ! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone ? ' 
This moves : . . so at last I agree to relent, 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.' 

" I challenge you all to answer this : I tell 
you, you cannot. It cuts deep. But now for 
the rest of the letter : and next — but I want 
room — so I believe I shall battle the rest out at 
Barton some day next week. — I don't value 
you .all ! O. G-." 

We regret that we have no record of this 
Christmas visit to Barton ; that the poet had no 
Bos well to. follow at his heels, and take note of 
all his sayings and doings. We can only picture 
him in our minds, casting off all care ; enacting 
the lord of misrule ; presiding at the Christmas 
revels ; providing all kinds of merriment ; keep- 
ing the card-table in an uproar, and finally open- 
ing the ball on the first day of the year in his 
spring-velvet suit, with the Jessamy Bride for a 
Dartner. 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Theatrical Delays. — Negotiations with Colman. — Letter to 
Garrick. — Croaking of the Manager. — Naming of the 
Play. — "She Stoops to Conquer." — Foote's Primitive 
Puppet-Show, " Piety on Pattens." — First Performance of 
the Comedy. — Agitation of the Author. — Success. — Col- 
man Squibbed out of Town. 

HE gay life depicted in the two last 
chapters, while it kept Goldsmith in a 
state of continual excitement, aggravated 
the malady which was impairing his constitution ; 
yet his increasing perplexities in money-matters 
drove him to the dissipation of society as a relief 
from solitary care. The delays of the theatre 
added to those perplexities. He had long since 
finished his new comedy, yet the year 1772 passed 
away without his being able to get it on the 
stage. No one, uninitiated in the interior of a 
theatre, that little world of traps and trickery, can 
have any idea of the obstacles and perplexities 
multiplied in the way of the most eminent and 
successful author by the mismanagement of man- 
agers, the jealousies and intrigues of rival authors, 
and the fantastic and ^impertinent caprices of 
actors. A long and baffling negotiation was car- 
ried on between Goldsmith and Colman, the man- 
ager of Covent Garden ; who retained the play in 
his hands until the middle of January, (1773,) 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH COLMAN 345 

without coming to a decision. The theatrical 
seaso;i was rapidly passing away, and Goldsmith's 
pecuniary difficulties were augmenting and press- 
ing on him. We may judge of his anxiety by 
the following letter : — 

u To George Colman, Esq. 
" Dear Sir, — 

" I entreat you '11 relieve me from that state of 
suspense in which I have been kept for a long 
time. Whatever objections you have made or 
shall make to my play, I will endeavor to remove 
and not argue about them. To bring in any new 
judges either of its merits or faults I can never 
submit to. Upon a former occasion, when my 
other play was before Mr. Garrick, he offered to 
bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I 
refused the proposal with indignation : I hope I 
shall not experience as harsh treatment from you 
as from him. I have, as you know, a large sum 
of money to make up shortly ; by accepting my 
play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way ; 
at any rate, I must look about to some certainty 
to be prepared. For God's sake take the play, 
and let us make the best of it, and let me have 
the same measure, at least, which you have given 
as bad plays as mine. 

" J am your friend and servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

Colman returned the manuscript with the blank 
sides of the leaves scored with disparaging com- 
ments, and suggested alterations, but with the 



346 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

intimation that the faith of the theatre should be 
kept, and the play acted notwithstanding. Gold- 
smith submitted the criticisms to some of his 
friends, who pronounced them trivial, unfair, and 
contemptible, and intimated that Colman, being a 
dramatic writer himself, might be actuated b\ 
jealousy. The play was then sent, with Colman's 
comments written on it, to Garrick ; but he had 
scarce sent it when Johnson interfered, repre- 
sented the evil that might result from an apparent 
rejection of it by Co vent Garden, and undertook 
to go forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with 
him on the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned 
the following note to Garrick : — 

" Dear Sir, — 

" I ask many pardons for the trouble I gave 
you yesterday. Upon more mature deliberation, 
and the advice of a sensible friend, I began to 
think it indelicate in, me to throw upon you the 
odium of confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I 
therefore request you will send my play back by 
my servant ; for having been assured of having 
it acted at the other house, though I confess yours 
in every respect more to my wish, yet it would 
be folly in me to forego an advantage which lies 
in my power of appealing from Mr. Colman's 
opinion to the judgment of the town. I entreat, 
if not too late, you will keep this affair a secret 
f or some time. 

" I am, dear Sir, your very humble servant, 
" Oliver Goldsmith." 

The negotiation of Johnson with the manager 



CROAKING OF COLMAN. 347 

of Covent Garden was effective. " Colman," he 
says, " was prevailed on at last, by much solicita- 
tion, nay, a kind of force," to bring forward the 
comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous, or 
at least indiscreet enough to express his opinion 
that it would not reach a second representation. 
The plot, he said, was bad, and the interest not 
sustained ; " it dwindled, and dwindled, and at last 
went out like the snuff of a candle." The effect of 
his croaking was soon apparent within the walls 
of the theatre. Two of the most popular actors, 
Woodward and Gentleman Smith, to whom the 
parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Marlow were 
assigned, refused to act them; one of them alleg- 
ing, in excuse, the evil predictions of the manager. 
Goldsmith was advised to postpone the perform- 
ance of his play until he could get these impor- 
tant parts well supplied. " No," said he, " I would 
sooner that my play were damned by bad players 
than merely saved by good acting." 

Quick was substituted for Woodward in Tony 
Lumpkin, and Lee Lewis, the harlequin of the 
theatre, for Gentleman Smith in Young Marlow ; 
and both did justice to their parts. 

Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends 
in the success of his piece. The rehearsals were 
attended by Johnson, Cradock, Murphy, Reynolds 
and his sister, and the whole Horneck connection, 
including, of cource, the Jessamy Bride, whose 
presence may have contributed to nutter" the anx- 
ious heart of the author. The rehearsals went off 
with great applause ; but that Colman attributed 
to the partiality of friends. He continued to 



348 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

croak, and refused to risk any expense in new 
scenery or dresses on a play which he was sure 
would prove a failure. 

The time was at hand for the first representa- 
tion, and as yet the comedy was without a title. 
" We are all in labor for a name for Goldy's play," 
said Johnson, who, as usual, took a kind of fatherly 
protecting interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs 
" The Old House a New Inn " was thought of for 
a time, but still did not please. Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds proposed " The Belle's Stratagem," an ele- 
gant title, but not considered applicable, the per- 
plexities of the comedy being produced by the 
mistake of the hero, not the stratagem of the her- 
oine. The name was afterwards adopted by Mrs. 
Cowley for one of her comedies. " The Mistakes 
of a Night " was the title at length fixed upon, to 
which Goldsmith prefixed the words, " She Stoops 
to Conquer." 

The evil bodings of Colman still continued : 
they were even communicated in the box-office to 
the servant of the Duke of Gloucester, who was 
sent to engage a box. Never did the play of a 
popular writer struggle into existence through 
more difficulties. 

In the mean time Foote's " Primitive Puppet- 
Show," entitled the " Handsome Housemaid, 01 
Piety on Pattens," had been brought out at the 
Haymarket on the loth of February. All the 
world, fashionable and unfashionable, had crowded 
to the theatre. The street was thronged with 
equipages, — the doors were stormed by the mob. 
The burlesque was completely successful, and sen- 



'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER." 349 

timental comedy received its quietus. Even 
Garrick, who had recently befriended it, now 
gave it a kick, as he saw it going down-hill, and 
sent Goldsmith a humorous prologue to help his 
comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and 
Goldsmith, however, were now on very cordial 
terms, to which the social meetings in the circle 
of the Hornecks and Bunburys may have con- 
tributed. 

On the 15th of March the new comedy was to 
be performed. Those who had stood up for its 
merits, and been irritated and disgusted by the 
treatment it had received from the manager, de- 
termined to muster their forces, and aid in giving 
it a good launch upon the town. The particulars 
of this confederation, and of its triumphant suc- 
cess, are amusingly told by Cumberland in his 
memoirs. 

" We were not over-sanguine of success, but 
perfectly determined to struggle hard for our au- 
thor. We accordingly assembled our strength at 
the Shakspeare Tavern, in a considerable body, 
for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson took 
the chair at the head of a long table, and was the 
life and soul of the corps ; the poet took post si- 
lently by his side, with the Burkes, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb Whitefoord, and a 
phalanx of North British, predetermined applaud- 
ers, under the banner of Major Mills, — all good 
men and true. Our illustrious president was in 
inimitable glee; and poor Goldsmith that day 
took all his raillery as patiently and complacently 
as my friend Boswell would have done any day 



350 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

or every day of his life. In the mean time we 
did not forget our duty ; and though we had a 
better comedy going, in which Johnson was chief 
actor, we betook ourselves in good time to our 
separate and allotted posts, and waited the awful 
drawing up of the curtain. As our stations were 
preconcerted, so were our signals for plaudits 
arranged and determined upon in a manner that 
gave every one his cue where to look for them, 
and how to follow them up. 

" We had among us a very worthy and efficient 
member, long since lost to his friends and the 
world at large, Adam Drummond, of amiable 
memory, who was gifted by nature with the most 
sonorous, and at the same time the most conta- 
gious laugh that ever echoed from the human 
lungs. The neighing of the horse of the son of 
Hystaspes was a whisper to it ; the whole thun 
der of the theatre could not drown it. This kind 
and ingenious friend fairly forewarned us that he 
knew no more when to give his fire than the can- 
non did that was planted on a battery. He de- 
sired, therefore, to have a flapper at his elbow, 
and I had the honor to be deputed to that office. 
I planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over 
the stage, in full view of the pit and galleries, and 
perfectly well situated to give the echo all its play 
through the hollows and recesses of the theatre 
The success of our manoeuvre was complete 
All eyes were upon Johnson, who sat in a 
front row of a side-box ; and when he laughed, 
everybody thought themselves warranted to roar. 
In the mean time, my friend followed signals with 



A LAUGHING FUGLEMAN. 351 

a rattle so irresistibly comic, that, when he had 
repeated it several times, the attention of the 
spectators was so engrossed by his person and 
performances, that the progress of the play seemed 
likely to become a secondary object, and I found 
it prudent to insinuate to him that he might hall 
Ills music without any prejudice to the author ; 
but alas ! it was now too late to rein him in ; he 
had laughed upon my signal where he found no 
joke, and now, unluckily, he fancied that he found 
a joke in almost everything that was said ; so 
that nothing in nature could be more mal-apropos 
than some of his bursts every now and then were. 
These were dangerous moments, for the pit be- 
gan to take umbrage ; but we carried our point 
through, and triumphed not only over Colman's 
judgment, but our own." 

Much of this statement has been condemned as 
exaggerated or discolored. Cumberland's memoirs 
have generally been characterized as partaking of 
romance, and in the present instance he had par- 
ticular motives for tampering with the truth. 
He was a dramatic writer himself, jealous of the 
success of a rival, and anxious to have it attrib- 
uted to the private management of friends. 
According to various accounts, public and private, 
such management was unnecessary, for the piece 
was " received throughout with the greatest ac- 
clamations." 

Goldsmith, in the present instance, had not 

dared, as on a former occasion, to be present at 

the first performance. He had been so overcome 

by his apprehensions that, at the preparatory din- 

23 



352 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ner, he c< aid hardly utter a word, and was so 
choked that lie could not swallow a mouthful. 
When his friends trooped to the theatre, he stole 
away to St. James's Park : there he was found by 
a friend, between seven and eight o'clock, wander- 
ing up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit. 
With difficulty he was persuaded to go to the 
theatre, where his presence might be important 
should any alteration be necessary. He arrived 
at the opening of the fifth act, and made his way 
behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was 
a slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lump- 
kin's trick on his mother, in persuading her she 
was forty miles off, on Crackskuli Common, 
though she had been trundled about on her own 
grounds. " What 's that ? what 's that ! " cried 
Goldsmith to the manager, in great agitation. 
" Pshaw ! Doctor," replied Colman, sarcastically, 
" don't be frightened at a squib, when we 've 
been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gun- 
powder ! " Though of a most forgiving nature, 
Goldsmith did not easily forget this ungracious 
and ill-timed sally. 

If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry 
motives ascribed to him in his treatment of this 
play, he was most amply punished by its success, 
and by the taunts, epigrams, and censures lev- 
elled at him through the press, in which his false 
prophecies were jeered at, his critical judgment 
called in question, and he was openly taxed with 
literary jealousy. So galling and unremitting 
was the fire, that he at length wrote to Gold- 
smith, entreating him " to take him off the rack 



SQUIBS AND CRACKERS. ,358 

of the newspapers " ; in the mean time, to escape 
the laugh that was raised about him in the theat- 
rical world of London, he took refuge in Bath 
during the triumphant career of the comedy. 

The following is one of the many squibs winch 
assailed the ears of the manager : — 

TO GEORGE C0LMAN, ESQ., 
ON THE SUCCESS OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY. 

" Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, 
Nor thus with jokes be fiamm'd; 
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 
His next may still be damn'd. 

As this has 'scaped without a fall, 

To sink his next prepare; 
New actors hire from Wapping Wai 

And dresses from Rag Fair. 

For scenes let tatter' d blankets fly, 

The prologue Kelly write ; 
Then swear again the piece must die 

Before the author's night. 

Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf, 

To bring to lasting shame, 
E'en write the best you can yourself, 

And print it in his name.'''' 

The solitary hiss, which had startled Gold- 
smith, was ascribed by some of the newspaper 
scribblers to Cumberland himself, who was " mani- 
festly miserable " at the delight of the audience, 
or to Ossian Macpherson, who was hostile to the 
whole Johnson clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic 
rival, Kelly. The following is one of the epigrams 
which appeared : — 



35* OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, 
All the spectators laugh, they say; 
The assertion, sir, I must deny, 
For Cumberland and Kelly cry. 

Ride, si sapis" 

Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to 
Kelly's early apprenticeship to stay-making : — 

" If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse, 
And thinks that too loosely it plays, 
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse 
To make it a new Pair of Stays ! " 

Cradock had returned to the country before the 
production of the play ; the following letter, writ- 
ten just after the performance, gives an additional 
picture of the thorns which beset an author in the 
path of theatrical literature : — 

"My dear Sir, — 

" The play has met with a success much beyond 
your expectations or mine. I thank jou sincerely 
for your epilogue, which, however, could not be 
used, but with your permission shall he printed. 
The story in short is this. Murphy sent me 
rather the outline of an epilogue than an epilogue, 
which was to be sung by Miss Catley, and which 
she approved ; Mrs. Bulkley, hearing this, insisted 
on throwing up her part " (Miss Hardcastle) " un- 
less, according to the custom of the theatre, she 
were permitted to speak the epilogue. In this 
embarrassment I thought of making a quarrelling 
epilogue between Catley and her, debating who 
should speak the epilogue ; but then Mrs. Catley 
refused after I had taken the trouble of drawing 



CRITICAL OPINIONS. 355 

ft out. I was then at a loss indeed ; an epilogue 
was to be made, and for none but Mrs. Bulkley. 
I made one, and Colman thought it too bad to be 
spoken ; I was obliged, therefore, to try a fourth 
time, and I made a very mawkish thing, as you '11 
shortly see. Such is the history of my stage 
adventures, and which I have at last done* with. 
I cannot help saying that I am very sick of the 
stage ; and though I believe I shall get three tol- 
erable benefits, yet I shall, on the whole, be a 
loser, even in a pecuniary light ; my ease and 
comfort I certainly lost while it was in agitation. 

" I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and 
obedient servant, " Oliver Goldsmith. 

" P. S. — Present my most humble respects to 
Mrs. Cradock/' 

Johnson, who had taken such a conspicuous* 
part in promoting the interest of poor " Goldy," 
was triumphant at the success of the piece. " I 
know of no comedy for many years," said he, 
" that has so much exhilarated an audience ; that 
has answered so much the great end of comedy — 
making an audience merry." 

Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause 
from less authoritative sources. Nortncote, the 
painter, then a youthful pupil of Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, and Ralph, Sir Joshua's confidential man, 
had taken their stations in the gallery to lead the 
applause in that quarter. Goldsmith asked North- 
eote's opinion of the play. The youth modestly 
declared he could not presume to judge m such 
matters. " Did it make you laugh ? " ; ' Oh, 



356 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

exceedingly ! " " That is all I require," replied 
Goldsmith; and rewarded him for his criticism by 
box-tickets for his first benefit-night. 

The comedy was immediately put to press, and 
dedicated to Johnson in the following grateful and 
affectionate terms : — 

" In inscribing this slight performance to you, 
I do not mean so much to compliment you as my- 
self. It may do me some honor to inform the 
public that I have lived many years in intimacy 
with you. It may serve the interests of mankind 
also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be 
found in a character, without impairing the most 
unaffected piety." 

The copyright was transferred to Mr. Newbery, 
according to agreement, whose profits on the sale 
of the work far exceeded the debts for which the 
author in his perplexities had preengaged it. 
The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his 
benefit-nights afforded but a slight palliation of 
his pecuniary difficulties. His friends, while they 
exulted in his success, little knew of his contin- 
ually increasing embarrassments, and of the anx- 
iety of mind which kept tasking his pen while it 
impaired the ease and freedom of spirit necessary 
to felicitous composition. 





CHAPTER XXXVm. 

k Newspaper Attack. — The Evans Affray. *- Johnson's 
Comment. 

HE triumphant success of " She Stoops to 
Conquer " brought forth, of course, those 
carpings and cavillings of underling scrib- 
blers, which are the thorns and briers in the path 
of successful authors. Goldsmith, though easily 
nettled by attacks of the kind, was at present too 
well satisfied with the reception of his comedy to 
heed them ; but the following anonymous letter, 
which appeared in a public paper, was not to be 
taken with equal equanimity : — 

(For the London Packet.) 
"TO DR. GOLDSMITH. 

" Vous vous noyezpar vanite. 

" Sir, — The happy knack which you have 
learned of puffing your own compositions pro- 
vokes me to come forth. You have not been the 
editor of newspapers and magazines not to dis- 
cover the trick of literary humbug ; but the gauze 
is so thin that the very foolish part of the world 
see through it, and discover the doctor's monkey- 
face and cloven foot. Your poetic vanity is as 
unpardonable as your personal. Would man be 
(ieve it, and will woman bear it, to be told that 



35S OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

for hours the great Goldsmith will stand survey- 
ing his grotesque orang-outang's figure in a pier- 
glass ? Was but the lovely H — k as much 
enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in 
vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How 
will this same bard of Bedlam ring the changes 
in the praise of Goldy ! But what has he to be 
either proud or vain of ? i The Traveller ' is a 
flimsy poem, built upon false principles — princi- 
ples diametrically opposite to liberty. What is 
'The Good-natured Man' but a poor, water- 
gruel dramatic dose ? What is ' The Deserted 
Village ' but a pretty poem of easy numbers, 
without fancy, dignity, genius, or fire? And, 
pray, what may be the last speaking pantomime, 
so praised by the Doctor himself, but an incohe- 
rent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a 
fish's tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue ? 
We are made to laugh at stale, dull jokes, whereni 
we mistake pleasantry for wit, and grimace for 
humor ; wherein every scene is unnatural and in- 
consistent with the rules, the laws of nature and 
of the drama ; viz : two gentlemen come to a man 
of fortune's house, eat, drink, &c, and take it for 
an inn. The one is intended as a lover for the 
daughter ; he talks with her for some hours ; and, 
when he sees her again in a different dress, he 
treats her as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. 
He abuses the master of the house, and threatens 
to kick him out of his own doors. The squire, 
whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be 
the most sensible being of the piece ; and he 
makes out a whole act by bidding his mother lie 



NEWSPAPER ATTACK. 359 

slose behind a bush, persuading her that his 
father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and 
that he has come to cut their throats; and, to 
give his cousin an opportunity to go off, he drives 
his mother over hedges, ditches, and through 
ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking Johnson, a 
natural stroke in the whole play but the young 
fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, 
supposing her to be the landlady. That Mr. 
Colman did no justice to this piece, I honestly al- 
low ; that he told all his friends it would be 
damned, I positively aver ; and, from such un- 
generous insinuations, without a dramatic merit, 
it rose to public notice, and it is now the ton to 
go and see it, though I never saw a person that 
either liked it or approved it, any more than the 
absurd plot of Home's tragedy of ' Alonzo.' Mr. 
Goldsmith, correct your arrogance, reduce your 
vanity, and endeavor to believe, as a man, you are 
of the plainest sort, — and as an author but a 
mortal piece of mediocrity. 

" Brise le miroir infidele 
Qui vous cache la v£rite\ 

"Tom Tickle." 

It would be difficult to devise a letter more cal 
culated to wound the peculiar sensibilities of Gold 
smith. The attacks upon him as an autlioi 
though annoying enough, he could have tolerated 
but then the allusion to his " grotesque" person, 
to his studious attempts to adorn it ; and, above 
all, to his being an unsuccessful admirer of the 
lovely H — k (the Jessamy Bride), struck rudely 



360 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

upon the most sensitive part of his highly sensi- 
tive nature. The paragraph, it is said, was first 
pointed out to him by an officious friend, an Irish- 
man, who told him he was bound in honor to re- 
sent it ; but he needed no such prompting. He 
was in a high state of excitement and indignation, 
and, accompanied by his friend, who is said to 
have been a Captain Higgins, of the marines, he 
repaired to Paternoster Row, to the shop of Evans, 
the publisher, whom he supposed to be the editor 
of the paper. Evans was summoned by his shop- 
man from an adjoining room. Goldsmith an- 
nounced his name. " I have called," added he, 
" in consequence of a scurrilous attack made upon 
me, and an unwarrantable liberty taken with the 
name of a young lady. As for myself, I care little ; 
but her name must not be sported with." 

Evans professed utter ignorance of the mat- 
ter, and said he would speak to the editor. He 
stooped to examine a file of the paper, in search 
of the offensive article ; whereupon Goldsmith's 
friend gave him a signal, that now was a favor- 
able moment for the exercise of his cane. The 
hint was taken as quick as given, and the cane 
was vigorously applied to the back of the stoop- 
ing publisher. The latter rallied in an instant, 
and, being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, re- 
turned the blows with interest. A lamp hanging 
overhead was broken, and sent down a shower of 
oil upon the combatants ; but the battle raged 
with unceasing fury. The shopman ran off for 
a constable ; but Dr. Kenrick, who happened to 
be in the adjacent room, sallied forth, interfered 



THE VINDICATION. 361 

,!)etween the combatants, and put an end to the 
affray. He conducted Goldsmith to r coach, in 
exceedingly battered and tattered plight, and ac- 
companied him home, soothing him with much 
mock commiseration, though he was generally 
suspected, and on good grounds, to be the author 
of the libel. 

Evans immediately instituted a suit against 
Goldsmith for an assault, but was ultimately pre- 
vailed upon to compromise the matter, the poet 
contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh charity. 

Newspapers made themselves, as may well be 
supposed, exceedingly merry with the combat. 
Some censured him severely for invading the 
sanctity of a man's own house ; others accused 
him of having, in his former capacity of editor of 
a magazine, been guilty of the very offences that 
he now resented in others. This drew from him 
the following vindication : — 

" To the Public. 

" Lest it should be supposed that I have been 
willing to correct in others an abuse of which I 
have been guilty myself, I beg leave to declare, 
that, in all my life, I never wrote or dictated a 
single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper 
except a few moral essays under the character of 
a Chinese, about ten years ago, in the ' Ledger,' 
and a letter, to which I signed my name, in the 
1 St. James's Chronicle.' If the liberty of the 
press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no 
hand in it. 

" I have always considered the press as the 
prolector of our freedom, as a watchful guardian, 



362 " OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

capable of uniting the weak against the encroach- 
ments of power. What concerns the public most 
properly admits of a public discussion. But, of 
late, the press has turned from defending public 
interest to making inroads upon private life ; from 
combating the strong to overwhelming the feeble 
No condition is now too obscure for its abuse 
and the protector has become the tyrant of th 
people. In this manner the freedom of the press 
is beginning to sow the seeds of its own dissolu- 
tion ; the great must oppose it from principle, and 
the weak from fear ; till at last every rank of 
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, 
content with security from insults. 

" How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by 
which all are indiscriminately abused, and by 
which vice consequently escapes in the general 
censure, I am unable to tell ; all I could wish 
is, that, as the law gives us no protection against 
the injury, so it should give calumniators no 
shelter after having provoked correction. The 
insults which we receive before the public, by 
being more open, are the more distressing ; by 
treating them with silent contempt we do not pay 
a sufficient deference to the opinion of the world. 
By recurring to legal redress we too often expose 
the weakness of the law, which only serves to 
increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. 
In short, every man should singly consider him- 
self as the guardian of the liberty of the press, 
and, as far as his influence can extend, should 
endeavor to prevent its licentiousness becoming at 
last the grave of its freedom. 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 



JOHNSON'S COMMENT. 363 

Bos well, who had just arrived in town, mei 
with this article in a newspaper which he found 
at Dr. Johnson's. The Doctor was from home at 
the time, and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in a 
critical conference over the letter, determined 
from the style that it must have been written by 
the lexicographer himself. The latter on his re- 
turn soon undeceived them. " Sir," said he to 
Boswell, " Goldsmith would no more have asked 
me to have wrote such a thing as that for him 
than he would have asked me to feed him with a 
spoon, or do anything else that denoted his im- 
becility. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, 
he would not have been allowed to publish it. 
He has, indeed, done it very well ; but it is a 
foolish thing well done. I suppose he, has been 
so much elated with the success of his new com- 
edy, that he has thought everything that con- 
cerned him must be of importance to the public." 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Boswell in Holy-Week. — Dinner at Oglethorpe's. — Dinnei 
at Paoli's. — The Policy of Truth. — Goldsmith affects In- 
dependence of Royalty. — Paoli's Compliment. — John- 
son's Eulogium on the Fiddle. — Question about Suicide. 
Bosw ell's Subserviency. 

HE return of Boswell to town to his task 
of noting down the conversations of 
l^sr^s. Johnson, enables us to glean from his 
journal some scanty notices of Goldsmith. It 
was now Holy- Week, a time during which John- 
son was particularly solemn in his manner and 
strict in his devotions. Boswell, who was the 
imitator of the great moralist in everything, as- 
sumed, of course, an extra devoutness on the 
present occasion. " He had an odd mock solem- 
nity of tone and manner," said Miss Burney, 
(afterwards Madame D'Arblay,) " which he had 
acquired from constantly thinking, and imitating 
Dr. Johnson." It would seem that he undertook 
to deal out some second-hand homilies, a la John- 
son, for the edification of Goldsmith during Holy- 
Week. The poet, whatever might be his relig- 
ious feeling, had no disposition to be schooled by 
so shallow an apostle. " Sir," said he in reply, 
" as I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my 
coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from 
the priest." 



BOS WELL IN HOLY-WEEK. 365 

Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory 
or his memorandum - book. A few days after 
wards, the 9 th of April, he kept Good Friday 
with Dr. Johnson, in orthodox style ; breakfasted 
with him on tea and cross-buns ; went to church 
with him morning and evening ; fasted in the in- 
terval, and read with him in the Greek Testa- 
ment : then, in the piety of his heart, complained 
of the sore rebuff he had met with in the coursft 
of his religious exhortations to the poet, and 
lamented that the latter should indulge in " this 
loose way of talking." " Sir," replied Johnson, 
" Goldsmith knows nothing — he has made up 
his mind about nothing." 

This reply seems to have gratified the lurking 
jealousy of Boswell, and he has recorded it in 
his journal. Johnson, however, with respect to 
Goldsmith, and indeed with respect to everybody 
else, blew hot as well as cold, according to the 
humor he was in. Boswell, who was astonished 
and piqued at the continually increasing celebrity 
of the poet, observed some time after to Johnson, 
in a tone of surprise, that Goldsmith had acquired 
more fame than all the officers of the last war 
who were not generals. " Why, sir," answered 
Johnson, his old feeling of good- will working 
uppermost, " j^ou will find ten thousand fit to do 
what they did, before you find one to do what 
Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a 
thing is valued according to its rarity. A pebble 
that paves the street is in itself more useful than 
the diamond upon a lady's finger." 

On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and 



366 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Johnson at the table of old General Oglethorpe 
discussing the question of the degeneracy of the 
human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, and 
attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson 
denies the fact, and observes, that, even admit- 
ting it, luxury could not be the cause. It 
reached but a small proportion of the human 
race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not in- 
dulge in luxuries ; the poor and laboring classes, 
forming the great mass of mankind, were out of 
its sphere. Wherever it could reach them, it 
strengthened them and rendered them proliiic. 
The conversation was not of particular force or 
point as reported by Bos well ; the dinner-party 
was a very small one, in which there was no 
provocation to intellectual display. 

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, 
where we find poor Goldsmith happy and at 
home, singing Tony Lumpkin's song of the 
" Three Jolly Pigeons," and another, called the 
" Humors of Ballamaguery," to a very pretty 
Irish tune. It was to have been introduced in 
" She Stoops to Conquer," but was left out, as 
the actress who played the heroine could not sing. 

It was in these genial moments that the sun- 
shine of Goldsmith's nature would break out, and 
he would say and do a thousand whimsical and 
agreeable things that made him the life of the 
strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom con- 
versation was everything, used to judge Gold- 
smith too much by his own colloquial standard, 
and undervalue him for being less provided than 
himself with a< quired facts, the ammunition of 



DINNER AT PAOLPS. 367 

the tongue and often the mere lumber of the 
memory ; others, however, valued him for the 
native felicity of his thoughts, however care- 
lessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow qual- 
ities, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. 
" It is amazing," said Johnson one day, after he 
himself had been talking like an oracle ; " it is 
amazing how little Goldsmith knows ; he seldom 
comes where he is not more ignorant than any 
one else." " Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
with affectionate promptness, " there is no man 
whose company is more liked? 

Two or three days after the dinner at General 
Oglethorpe's, Goldsmith met Johnson again at the 
table of General Paoli, the hero of Corsica. 
Martinelli, of Florence, author of an Italian His- 
tory of England, was among the guests ; as was 
Boswefl, to whom we are indebted for minutes of 
the conversation which took place. The ques- 
tion was debated whether Martinelli should con- 
tinue his history down to that day. " To be sure 
he should," said Goldsmith. " No, sir," cried 
Johnson, " it would give great offence. He 
would have to tell of almost all the living great 
what they did not wish told." Goldsmith. — " It 
may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be 
more cautious ; but a foreigner, who comes 
among us without prejudice, may be considered 
as holding the place of a judge, and may speak 
his mind freely." Johnson. — " Sir, a foreigner, 
when he sends a work from the press, ought to 
be on his guard against catching the error and 
mistaken enthusiasm of the people among whom 
24 



868 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he happens to be." Goldsmith. — " Sir, he wants 
only to sell his history, and to tell truth ; one 
an honest, the other a laudable motive." John- 
son. — " Sir, they are both laudable motives. It 
is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labors ; 
but he should write so as he may live by them, 
not so as he may be knocked on the head. I 
would advise him to be at Calais before he pub- 
lishes his history of the present age. A foreigner 
who attaches himself to a political party in this 
country is in the worst state that can be imagined ; 
he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A na- 
tive may do it from interest." Boswell. — " Or 
principle." Goldsmith. — " There are people who 
tell a hundred political lies every day, and are 
not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth 
with perfect safety." Johnson. — " Why, sir, in 
the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has 
disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, a 
man had rather have a hundred lies told of him 
than one truth which he does not wish to be told." 
Goldsmith. — " For my part, I 'd tell the truth, 
and shame the devil." Johnson. — " Yes, sir, 
but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame 
the devil as much as you do, but I should choose 
to be out of the reach of his claws." Goldsmith. 
— " His claws can do you no hurt where you 
have the shield of truth." 

This last reply was one of' Goldsmith's lucky 
hits, and closed the argument in his favor. 

" We talked," writes Boswell, " of the King's 
coming to see Goldsmith's new play." "I wish 
he would," said Goldsmith, adding, however, with 



INDEPENDENCE OF ROYALTY. 369 

an affected indifference, " not that it would do 
me the least good." " Well, then," cried Johnson, 
laughing, " let us say it would do him good. No, 
sir, this affectation will not pass, — it is mighty 
idle. In such a state as ours, who would not 
wish to please the chief magistrate ? " 

" I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. 
" I remember a line in Dryden : — 

" ' And every poet is the monarch's friend ; ' 

it ought to be reversed." " Nay," said Johnson, 
" there are finer lines in Dryden on this subject : 

" ' For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend. 



> i? 



General Paoli observed that "successful rebels 
might be." " Happy rebellions," interjected Mar- 
tinelli. " We have no such phrase," cried Gold- 
smith. " But have you not the thing ? " asked 
Paoli. " Yes," replied Goldsmith, " all our happy 
revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, 
and will hurt it, till we mend it by another 
happy revolution." This was a sturdy sally 
of Jacobitism, that quite surprised Bos well, but 
must have been relished by Johnson. 

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the 
play, which had been construed into a compli- 
ment to a lady of distinction, whose marriage 
with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the 
strong disapprobation of the King as a mesalli- 
ance, Boswell, to draw Goldsmith out, pretended 
to think the compliment unintentional. The poet 
smiled and hesitated. The General came to his 
relief. " Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, " est 



370 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

comrae la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup 
d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appereevoir." 
(Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth 
pearls and many other beautiful things without 
perceiving it.) 

" Tres-bien dit, et tres-elegamment," (very well 
said, and very elegantly,) exclaimed Goldsmith, 
delighted with so beautiful a compliment from 
such a quarter. 

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of 
Mr. Harris, of Salisbury, and doubted his being a 
good Grecian. " He is what is much better," 
cried Goldsmith, with prompt good-nature, — " he 
is a worthy, humane man." " Nay, sir," rejoined 
the logical Johnson, " that is not to the purpose 
of our argument ; that will prove that he can 
play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that 
he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith found he 
had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini 
to help him out of it. " The greatest musical 
performers," said he, dexterously turning the con- 
versation, " have but small emoluments ; Giardini, 
I am told, does not get above seven hundred a 
year." " That is indeed but little for a man to 
get," observed Johnson, " who does best that 
which so many endeavor to do. There is noth- 
ing, I think, in which the power of art is shown 
so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other 
things we can do something at first. Any man 
will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a ham- 
mer ; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A 
man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, 
(hough a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and 
fiddlestick, and he can do nothing." 



QUESTION ABOUT SUICIDE. 371 

This, upon the whole, though reported by the 
Dne-sided Boswell, is a tolerable specimen of the 
conversations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the 
former heedless, often illogical, always on the 
kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to 
redeem himself by lucky hits ; the latter closely 
argumentative, studiously sententious, often pro- 
found, and sometimes laboriously prosaic. 

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. 
Thrale's table, on the subject of suicide. " Do 
you think, sir," said Boswell, " that all who com- 
mit suicide are mad ? " " Sir," replied Johnson, 
" they are not often universally disordered in their 
intellects, but one passion presses so upon them 
that they yield to it, and commit suicicfe, as a 
passionate man will stab another. I have often 
thought," added he, " that after a man has taken 
the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage m 
him to do anything, however desperate, because 
he has nothing to fear." "I don't see that," 
observed Goldsmith. " Nay, but, my dear sir," 
rejoined Johnson, " why should you not see what 
every one else does ? " " It is," replied Gold- 
smith, " for fear of something that he has resolved 
to kill himself ; and will not that timid disposition 
restrain him ? " " It does not signify," pursued 
Johnson, " that the fear of something made him 
resolve ; it is upon the state of his mind, after 
the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a 
man, either from fear, or pride, or conscience, or 
whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself; 
when once the resolution is taken he has nothing 
to fear. He may then go and take the King of 



372 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Prussia by the nose at the head of his army. He 
cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill 
himself." Boswell reports no more of the discus- 
sion, though Goldsmith might have continued it 
with advantage : for the very timid disposition, 
which through fear of something was impelling 
the man to commit suicide, might restrain him 
from an act involving the punishment of the rack, 
more terrible to him than death itself. 

It is to be regretted in all these reports by 
Boswell, we have scarcely anything but the re- 
marks of Johnson ; it is only by accident that he 
now and then gives us the observations of others, 
when they are necessary to explain or set off those 
of his hero. " When in that 'presence'' says Miss 
Burney, " he was unobservant, if not contempt- 
uous of every one else. In truth, when he met 
with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even 
answering anything that was said, or attending 
to anything that went forward, lest he should 
miss the smallest sound from that voice, to which 
he paid such exclusive, though merited homage. 
But the moment that voice burst forth, the atten- 
tion which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted 
almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eager- 
ness ; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder 
of the Doctor ; and his mouth dropped open 
to catch every syllable that might be uttered ; 
nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, 
but to be anxious not to miss a breathing, as if 
hoping from it latently, or mystically, some infor- 
mation." 

On one occasion the Doctor detected Bosv 



SERVILITY OF BOS WELL. 373 

w Bozzy, as he called him, eavesdropping behind 
uis chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney 
at Mr. Thrale's table. " What are you doing 
there, sir ? " cried he, turning round angrily, and 
clapping his hand upon his knee. " Go to the 
table, sir." 

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and 
submission, which raised a smile on every face. 
Scarce had he taken his seat, however, at a dis- 
tance, than, impatient to get again at the side of 
Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of 
something to show him, when the Doctor roared 
after him authoritatively, " What are you thinking 
of, sir ? Why do you get up before the cloth is 
removed ? Come back to your place, sir ; " — 
and the obsequious spaniel did as he was com- 
manded. — " Running about in the middle of 
meals ! " muttered the Doctor, pursing his mouth 
at the same time to restrain his rising risibility. 

Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which 
would have demolished any other man. He had 
been teasing him with many direct questions, such 
as, " What did you do, sir ? — What did you say, 
sir ? " until the great philologist became perfectly 
enraged. " I will not be put to the question I " 
roared he. " Don't you consider, sir, that these 
are not the manners of a gentleman ? I will not 
be baited with what and why ; — What is this ? 
What is that ? Why is a cow's tail long ? Why 
is a fox's tail bushy ? " " Why, sir," replied pil- 
garlick, " you are so good that I venture to 
trouble you." " Sir," replied Johnson, " my being 
so good is no reason why you should be so ill" 



374 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"You. have but two topic?, sir," exclaimed he 
on another occasion, " yourself and roe, and I am 
sick of both." 

Boswell's inveterate disposition to toad, was a 
sore cause of mortification to his father, the old 
laird of Auchinleck, (or Affleck.) He had been 
annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, 
but then he was something of a military hero ; 
but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, 
whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set 
his Scotch blood in a ferment. " There 's nae 
hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend ; — 
"Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, 
mon ? He 's done wi' Paoli ; he *s off wi' the land- 
duping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whose tail 
do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, man ? 
A dominie, mon ; an auld dominie ; he keeped a 
schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy." 

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's 
devotion to the dominie did not go unrewarded. 




CHAPTER XL. 

Changes in the Literary Club. — Johnson's Objection to 
Garrick. — Election of Boswell. 

'HE Literary Club (as we have termed 
the club in Gerard Street, though it 
took that name some time later) had 
now been in existence several years. Johnson 
was exceedingly chary at first of its' exclusive- 
ness, and opposed to fts being augmented in num- 
ber. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. " I like 
it much," said little David, briskly ; " T think I 
shall be of you." " When Sir Joshua mentioned 
this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, " he was 
much displeased with the actor's conceit. ' He HI 
he of usV growled he. ' How does he know 
we will permit him ? The first duke in England 
has no right to hold such language.' " 

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of 
Garrick's pretensions, " Sir," replied Johnson, " he 
will disturb us by his buffoonery." In the same 
spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale, that, if Garrick 
should apply for admission, he would black-ball 
him. " Who, sir ? " exclaimed Thrale, with sur- 
prise ; " Mr. Garrick — your friend, your com- 
oanion — black-ball him ! " " Why, sir," replied 



376 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Johnson, " I love my little David dearly — bet- 
ter than all or any of his flatterers do ; but surely 
one ought to sit in a society like ours, 

" ' Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' " 

The exclusion from the club was a sore morti- 
fication to Garrick, though he bore it without 
complaining. He could not help continually to 
ask questions about it — what was going on 
there — whether he was ever the subject of con- 
versation. By degrees the rigor of the club re- 
laxed : some of the members grew negligent. 
Beauclerc lost his right of membership by neg- 
lecting to attend. On his marriage, however, 
with Lady' Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke 
of Marlborough, and recently divorced from Vis- 
count Bolingbroke, he had claimed and regained 
his seat in the club. The number of members 
had likewise been augmented. The proposition 
to increase it originated with Goldsmith. " It 
would give," he thought, " an agreeable variety 
to their meetings ; for there can be nothing new 
amongst us," said he ; " we have travelled over 
each other's minds." Johnson was piqued at the 
suggestion. " Sir," said he, " you have not trav- 
elled over my mind, I promise you." Sir Joshua, 
less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his 
mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Gold- 
smith's suggestion. Several new members, there- 
fore, had been added ; the first, to his great joy, 
was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who was now 
on cordial terms with him, had zealously pro- 
moted his elec ion, and Johnson had given it hia 



BOS WELL PROPOSED AT THE CLUB. 377 

warm approbation. Another new member was 
Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charlemont ; and a still 
more important one was Mr. (afterwards Sir 
William) Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that 
time a young lawyer of the Temple and a distin- 
guished scholar. 

To the great astonishment of the club, John- 
son now proposed his devoted follower, Boswell, 
as a member. He did it in a note addressed to 
Goldsmith, who presided on the evening of the 
23d of April. The nomination was seconded by 
Beauclerc. According to the rules of the club, 
the ballot would take place at the next meeting 
(on the 30th) ; there was an intervening week, 
therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of 
the candidate. We may easily imagine the dis- 
cussions that took place. Boswell had made him- 
self absurd in such a variety of ways that the 
very idea of his admission was exceedingly irk- 
some to some of the members. " The honor of 
being elected into the Turk's Head Club," said 
the Bishop of St. Asaph, " is not inferior to that 
of being representative of Westminster and Sur- 
rey ; " what had Boswell done to merit such an 
honor? What chance had he of gaining it? 
The answer was simple : he had been the perse- 
vering worshipper, if not sycophant of Johnson. 
The great lexicographer had a heart to be won 
by apparent affection; he stood forth authorita- 
tively in support of his vassal. If asked to state 
the merits of the candidate, he summed them up 
in an indefinite but comprehensive word of his 
own coining : — he was clubable. He moreover 



378 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

gave significant hints that if Boswell were kepi 
out he should oppose the admission of any other 
candidate. No further opposition was made ; in 
fact none of the members had been so fastidious 
and exclusive in regard to the club as Johnson 
himself; and if he were pleased, they were easily 
satisfied : besides, they knew that, with all his 
faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and 
possessed lively social qualities. 

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, 
Beauclerc gave a dinner, at his house in the 
Adelphi, where Boswell met several of the mem- 
bers who were favorable to his election. After 
dinner the latter adjourned to the club, leaving 
Boswell in company with Lady Di Beauclerc 
until the fate of his election should be known. 
He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety which even 
the charming conversation of Lady Di could not 
entirely dissipate. It was not long before tidings 
were brought of his election, and he was con- 
ducted to the place of meeting, where, beside the 
company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr. Nu- 
gent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones 
were waiting to receive him. The club, notwith- 
standing all its learned dignity in the eyes of 
the world, could at times " unbend and play the 
fool " as well as less important bodies. Some of 
its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, 
and a society in which Goldsmith could venture 
to si ner his song of " an old woman tossed in a 
blanket," could not be so very staid in its gravity. 
We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had 
been passing among the members while awaiting 



CHARGE OF JOHNSON. 379 

the arrival of Bos well. Beauclerc himself could 
not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic 
pleasantry. At least we have a right to presume 
all this from the conduct of Doctor Johnson 
himself. 

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund 
of quiet humor, and felt a kind of whimsical re- 
sponsibility to protect the club from the absurd 
propensities of the very questionable associate 
he had thus inflicted on them. Rising, therefore, 
as Bos well entered, he advanced with a very doc- 
torial air, placed himself behind a chair, on which 
he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and then de- 
livered, ex cathedra, a mock solemn charge, point- 
ing out the conduct expected from him as a 
good member of the club ; what he was to do, 
and especially what he was to avoid ; including 
in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying v 
questioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had 
so often grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. 
It is to be regretted that Boswell has never 
thought proper to note down the particulars of 
this charge, which, from the well-known charac- 
ters and positions of the parties, might have fur- 
nished a parallel to the noted charge of Launce- 
lot Gobbo to his dog. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

Dinner at Dilly's. — Conversations on Natural History. — In- 
termeddling of Boswell. — Dispute about Toleration. — • 
Johnson's Rebuff to Goldsmith; His Apology. — Man- 
Worship. — Doctors Major and Minor. — A Farewell Visit. 

^tiftffiMk FEW days after the serio-comic scene 
£^\Sh °f tue elevation of Boswell into the Lit- 



<9^^M erary Club, we find that indefatigable 
biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the 
Dilly's, booksellers, in the Poultry, at which he 
met Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other 
literary characters. His anecdotes of the conver- 
sation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson ; for, as 
he observes in his biography, " his conversation 
alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with 
it, is the business of this work." Still on the 
present, as on other occasions, he gives uninten- 
tional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Gold- 
smith's good sense, which show that the latter 
only wanted a less prejudiced and more impartial 
reporter, to put down the charge of colloquial 
incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The con- 
versation turned upon the natural history of birds, 
a beautiful subject, on which the poet, from his 
recent studies, his habits of observation, and his 
natural tastes, must have talked with instruction 
and feeling ; yet, though we have much of what 



CONVERSA TIONS ON NA TUBAL BJS TOR Y. C-S\ 

Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or 
two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of 
swallows, which he pronounced partial ; " the 
stronger ones," said he, " migrate, the others do 
not." 

Johnson denied to the brute creation the fac- 
ulty of reason. " Birds," said he, " build by in- 
stinct ; they never improve ; they build their first 
nest as well as any one they ever build." " Yet 
we see," observed Goldsmith, " if you take away 
a bird's-nest with the eggs in it, she will make a 
slighter nest and lay again." " Sir," replied John- 
son, " that is because at first she has full time, and 
makes her nest deliberately. In the case you 
mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, 
make her nest quickly, and consequently it will 
be slight." "The nidification of birds," rejoined 
Goldsmith, " is what is least known in natural 
history, though one of the most curious things in 
it." While conversation was going on in this 
placid, agreeable, and instructive manner, the eter- 
nal meddler and busybody, Boswell, must intrude 
to put in a brawl. The Dillys Avere dissenters ; 
two of their guests were dissenting clergymen ; 
another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the 
established church. Johnson himself was a zeal- 
ous, uncompromising churchman. None but a 
marplot like Boswell would have thought, on such 
an occasion and in such company, to broach the 
subject of religious toleration ; but, as has been 
well observed, " it was his perverse inclination to 
introduce subjects that he hoped would produce 
difference and debate." In the present instance 



382 v OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he gained his point. An animated dispute imme- 
diately arose, in which, according to Boswell's re- 
port, Johnson monopolized the greater part of the 
conversation ; not always treating the dissenting 
clergymen with the greatest courtesy, and even 
once wounding the feelings of the mild and amia- 
ble Bennet Langton by his harshness. 

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and 
with some advantage, but was cut short by flat 
contradictions when most in the right. He sat 
for a time silent but impatient under such over- 
bearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with his usual 
misinterpretation, attributes his " restless agita- 
tion " to a wish to get in and shine. " Finding 
himself excluded," continues Boswell, " he had 
taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time 
with it in his hand, like a gamester who at the end 
of a long; night lingers for a little while to see if 
he can have a favorable opportunity to finish with 
success." Once he was beginning to speak, when 
he was overpowered by the loud voice of Johnson, 
who was at the opposite end of the table, and did 
not perceive his attempt ; whereupon he threw 
down, as it were, his hat and ■ his argument, and, 
darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in 
a bitter tone, " Take it." 

Just then one of the disputants was beginning 
to speak, when Johnson uttering some sound, as if 
about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to 
Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own 
envy and spleen under pretext of supporting an- 
other person. " Sir," said he to Johnson, " the 
gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour ; 



INTERMEDDLING OF BOS WELL. 383 

pray allow us now to hear him." It was a reproof 
in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have 
felt that he merited it ; but he was not accustomed 
to be reproved. " Sir," said he, sternly, " I was 
not interrupting the gentleman ; I was only giving 
* him a signal of my attention. Sir, you, are imper- 
tinent." Goldsmith made no reply, but after some 
time went away, having another engagement. 

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with 
Johnson and Langton to the club, he seized the 
occasion to make some disparaging remarks on 
Goldsmith, which he thought would just then be 
acceptable to the great lexicographer. " It was a 
pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would on every 
occasion endeavor to shine, by which he so often 
exposed himself." Langton contrasted him with 
Addison, who, content with the fame of his writ- 
ings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversation ; 
and on being taxed by a lady with silence in com- 
pany, replied, " Madam, I have but ninepence in 
ready money, but I can dmw for a thousand 
pounds." To this Boswell rejoined that Gold- 
smith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but 
was always taking out his purse. " Yes, sir," 
chuckled Johnson, " and that so often an empty 
purse." 

By the time Johnson arrived at the club, how- 
ever, his angry feelings had subsided, and his na- 
tive generosity and sense of justice had got the 
uppermost. He found Goldsmith in company with 
Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting 
silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, 
'* over the reprimand he had received." Johnson's 

25 



384 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

good heart yearned towards him ; and knowing 
his placable nature, " I '11 make Goldsmith for- 
give me," whispered he ; then, with a loud voice, 
" Dr. Goldsmith," said he, " something passed to- 
day where you and I dined, — I ask your pardon" 
The ire of the poet was extinguished in anjnstant, 
and his grateful affection for the magnanimous 
though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed 
to his heart. " It must be much from you, sir," 
said he, " that I take ill ! " " And so," adds Bos- 
well, " the difference was over, and they were on 
as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled 
away as usual." We do not think these stories 
tell to the poet's disadvantage, even though related 
by Bos well. 

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be 
ignorant of his proper merit, and must have felt 
annoyed at times at being undervalued and el- 
bowed aside by light-minded or dull men, in their 
blind and exclusive homage to the literary auto- 
crat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Bosweli on 
one occasion, for talking of Johnson as entitled to 
the honor of exclusive superiority. " Sir, you arc 
for making a monarchy what should be a repub- 
lic." On another occasion, when he was convers- 
ing in company with great vivacity, and apparently 
to the satisfaction of those around him, an honest 
Swiss who sat near, one George Michael Moser, 
keeper of the Royal Academy, perceiving Dr. 
Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, ex- 
claimed, " Stay, stay ! Toctor Shonson is going to 
say something." " And are you sure, sir," replied 
Goldsmith, sharply, " that you can comprehend 
what he says ? " 



DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR. 385 

This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest 
to the anecdote, is omitted by Boswell, who prob- 
ably did not perceive the point of it. 

He relates another anecdote of the kind on the 
authority of Johnson himself. The latter and 
Goldsmith were one evening in company with 
the Rev. George Graham, a master of Eton, who, 
notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had got 
intoxicated " to about the pitch of looking at one 
man and talking to another." " Doctor," cried 
he, in an ecstasy of devotion and good-will, but 
goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, " I should 
be glad to see you at Eton." I shall be glad 
to wait upon you," replied Goldsmith. " No, 
uo ! " cried the other, eagerly ; " 't is not you I 
mean," Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor Major there." 
" You may easily conceive," said Johnson, in re- 
lating the anecdote, " what effect this had upon 
Goldsmith, who was irascible as a hornet." The 
only comment, however, which he is said to have 
made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor 
than bitterness. " That Graham," said he, " is 
enough to make one commit suicide." What 
more could be said to express the intolerable nui- 
sance of a consummate bore ? 

We have now given the last scenes between 
Goldsmith and Johnson which stand recorded by 
Boswell. The latter called on the poet, a few 
days after the dinner at Dilly's, to take leave of 
him prior to departing for Scotland ; yet, even in 
tfiis last interview, he contrives to get up a charge 
of "jealousy and envy." Goldsmith, he would 
fain persuade us, is very angry that Johnson is 



3S6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

going to travel with him in Scotland, and en- 
deavors to persuade him that he will be a dead 
weight " to lug along through the Highlands and 
Hebrides." Any one else, knowing the character 
and habits of Johnson, would have thought the 
same ; and no one but Bos well would have sup 
posed his office of bear-leader to the ursa majoi 
a thing to be envied. # 

* One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing jeua 
& esprit is his congratufatory epistle to Boswell on this tour 
of which we subjoin a few lines. 

" BosAvell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, 
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame ; 
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, 
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north; 
To frighten grave professors with his roar, 
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore. 



Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, 

Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi ; 

Heavens ! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'tt J 

A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround ! 

Yes ! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze, 

And gild a world of darkness with his rays, 

Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail, 

A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail! " 




CHAPTER XLIL 

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. —Disappoint- 
ment. — Negligent Authorship. — Application for a Pen- 
sion. — Beattie's Essay on Truth. — Public Adulation. — 
A High-minded Rebuke. 

"ffi3-jB*$ HE works which Goldsmith had still in 




hand being already paid for, and the 
money gone, some new scheme must be 
devised to provide for the past and the future, — 
for impending debts which threatened to crush 
him, and expenses which were continually increas- 
ing. He now projected a work of greater com- 
pass than any he had yet undertaken : a Diction- 
ary of Arts and Sciences on a comprehensive scale, 
which was to occupy a number of volumes. For 
this he received promise of assistance from several 
powerful hands. Johnson was to contribute an 
article on ethics ; Burke, an abstract of his " Essay 
on the Sublime and Beautiful," an essay on the 
Berkleyan system of philosophy, and others on 
political science ; Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay 
on painting ; and Garrick, while he undertook on 
his own part to furnish an essay on acting, engaged 
Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. 
Here was a great array of talent positively en- 
gaged, while other writers of eminence were to be 
sought for the various departments of science. 



388 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Goldsmith was to edit the whole. An undertak- 
ing of this kind, while it did not incessantly task 
and exhaust his inventive powers by original 
composition, would give agreeable and profitable 
exercise tc his taste and judgment in selecting, 
compiling, and arranging, and he calculated to dif- 
fuse over the whole the acknowledged graces of 
his style. 

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is 
said by Bishop Percy, who saw it, to have been 
written with uncommon ability, and to have had 
that perspicuity and elegance for which his writ- 
ings are remarkable. This paper, unfortunately, 
is no longer in existence. 

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine re- 
specting any new plan, were raised to an extraor- 
dinary height by the present project; and well 
they might be, when we consider the powerful 
coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed, 
however, to complete disappointment. Davies, the 
bibliopole of Russell Street, lets us into the secret 
of this failure. " The booksellers," said he, " not- 
withstanding they had a very good opinion of his 
abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, importance, 
and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate 
of which was to depend upon the industry of a 
man with whose indolence of temper and method 
of procrastination they had long been acquainted." 

Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such 
distrust by the heedlessness with which he con- 
ducted his literary undertakings. Those unfin- 
ished, but paid for, would be suspended to make 
way for some job that was to provide for present 



NATURAL HISTORY. 389 

necessities. Those thus hastily taken up would 
be as hastily executed, and the whole, however 
pressing, would be shoved aside and left " at loose 
ends," on some sudden call to social enjoyment 
o 1 ' recreation. 

Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when 
Goldsmith was hard at woik on his " Natural 
History," he sent to Dr. Percy and himself, en- 
treating them to finish some pages of his work 
which lay upon his table, and for which the press 
was urgent, he being detained by other engage- 
ments at Windsor. They met by appointment at 
his chambers in the Temple, where they found 
everything in disorder, and costly books lying 
scattered about on the tables and on the floor ; 
many of the books on natural history which he 
had recently consulted lay open among uncorrected 
proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and from which 
he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. " Do 
you know anything about birds?" asked Dr. 
Percy, smiling. " Not an atom," replied Craclock ; 
" do you ? " " Not I ! I scarcely know a goose 
from a swan ; however, let us try what we can 
do." They set to work and completed their 
friendly task. Goldsmith, however, when he came 
to revise it, made such alterations that they could 
neither of them recognize their own share. The 
eno-ao-ement at Windsor, which had thus caused 

(Do ' 

Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multi- 
farious engagements, was a party of pleasure with 
some literary ladies. Another anecdote was cur- 
;ent, illustrative of the carelessness with which he 
executed works requiring accuracy and research. 



390 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

On the 22d of June he had received payment in 
advance for a " Grecian History " in two volumes 
though only one was finished. As he was push- 
ing on doggedly at the second volume, Gibbon, 
the historian, called in\ " You are the man of all 
others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be 
saved the trouble of reference to his books. " What 

was the name of that Indian kino; who gave Alex- 
is o 

ander the Great so much trouble ? " " Monte- 
zuma," replied Gibbon, sportively. The heedless 
author was about committing the name to paper 
without reflection, when Gibbon pretended to rec- 
ollect himself, and gave the true name, Porus. 

This story, very probably, was a sportive exag- 
geration ; but it was a multiplicity of anecdotes 
like this and the preceding one, some true and 
some false, which had impaired the confidence of 
booksellers in Goldsmith as a man to be relied on 
for a task requiring wide and accurate research, 
and close and long-continued application. The 
project of the " Universal Dictionary," therefore, 
met with no encouragement, and fell through. 

The failure of this scheme, on which he had 
built such spacious hopes, sank deep into Gold- 
smith's heart. He was still further grieved and 
mortified by the failure of an effort made by 
some of his friends to obtain for him a pension 
from government. There had been a talk of the 
disposition of the ministry to extend the bounty 
Df the crown to distinguished literary men in pe- 
cuniary difficulty, without regard to their political 
creed : when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, 
however, were laid before them, they met no 



PENSION DENIED. 391 

favor. The sin of sturdy independence lay at his 
door. He had refused to become a ministerial 
hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson Scott, 
the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had 
left him in poverty and " his garret? and there 
the ministry were disposed to suffer him to re- 
main. 

In the mean time Dr. Beattie comes out with 
his " Essay on Truth," and all the orthodox world 
are thrown into a paroxysm of contagious ecstasy. 
He is cried up as the great champion of Christian- 
ity against the attacks of modern philosophers and 
infidels ; he is feted and flattered in every way 
He receives at Oxford the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Civil Law, at the same time with Sir 
Joshua Reynolds. The King sends for him, 
praises his Essay, and gives him a pension of two 
hundred pounctt. 

Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a 
pension to himself when one has thus been given 
unsolicited to a man he might without vanity con- 
sider so much his inferior. He was not one to 
conceal his feelings. " Here 's such a stir," said 
he one day at Thrale's table, " about a fellow 
that has written one book, and I have written so 
many ! " 

" Ah, Doctor ! " exclaimed Johnson, in one of 
his caustic moods, " there go two-and-forty six- 
pences, you know, to one guinea." This is one 
of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which Johnson 
went contrary to head and heart in his love for 
saying what is called a " good thing." No one 
knew better than himself the comparative supe- 



392 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

riority of the writings of Goldsmith ; but the jin* 
gle of the sixpences and the guinea was not to 
be resisted. 

" Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, " loves 
Dr. Beattie, but Goldsmith, who says he cannot 
bear the sight of so much applause as they all be- 
stow upon him. Did he not tell us so himself, 
no one would believe he was so exceedingly ill- 
natured. 

He told them so himself because he was too 
open and unreserved to disguise his feelings, and 
because he really considered the praise lavished 
on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. It was 
all, of course, set down to sheer envy and unchari- 
tableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his 
friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, joining in the uni- 
versal adulation. He had painted a full-length 
portrait of Beattie decked in the aoctor's robes in 
which he had figured at Oxford, with the " Essay 
on Truth " under his arm and the angel of truth 
at his side, while Voltaire figured as one of the 
demons of infidelity, sophistry, and falsehood, 
driven into utter darkness. 

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life ; 
he had been his admirer and his biographer ; he 
grieved to find him receiving such an insult from 
the classic pencil of his friend. " It is unworthy 
of you," said he to Sir Joshua, " to debase so high 
a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as 
Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten 
in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for- 
ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this pic- 
ture to the shame of such a- man as you." This 



A HIGH-MINDED REBUKE. 393 

noble and high-minded rebuke is the only instance 
on record of any reproachful words between the 
poet and the painter ; and we are happy to find 
that it did not destroy the harmony of their inter- 
course. 




CHAPTER XLHL 



Toil without Hope. — The Poet in the Green-Room ; In the 
Flower-Garden ; At Vauxhall ; Dissipation without Gar 
ety. — Cradock mTown: Friendly Sympathy ; A Parting- 
Scene ; An Invitation to Pleasure. 



-^-jg^HWARTED in the plans and disap- 
$lsl 111 P°^ nte( i i n the hopes which had* recently 
^3^^S cheered and animated him, Goldsmith 
found the labor at his half-finished tasks doubly 
irksome from the consciousness that the comple- 
tion of them could not relieve him from his pe- 
cuniary embarrassments. His impaired health, 
also, rendered him less capable than formerly of 
sedentary application, and continual perplexities 
disturbed the flow of thought necessary for orig- 
inal composition. He lost his usual gayety and 
good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and 
irritable. Too proud of spirit to seek sympathy 
or relief from his friends, for the pecuniary diffi- 
culties he had brought upo'i* himself by his er- 
rors and extravagance, and unwilling, perhaps, to 
make known their amount, he buried his cares 
and anxieties in his own bosom, and endeavored in 
company to keep up his usual air of gayety and 
unconcern. This gave his conduct an appearance 
of fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from 
moodiness to mirth, and from silent gravity to 
shallow laughter ; causing surprise and ridicule in 



THE POET IN THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 395 

those who were not aware of the sickness of heart 
which lay beneath. 

His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a 
disadvantage to him ; it drew upon him a noto- 
riety which he was not always in the mood or 
the vein to act up to. " Good heavens, Mr. Foote," 
exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket Theatre, 
" what a humdrum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith 
appears in our green-room compared with the fig- 
ure he makes in his poetry ! " " The reason of 
that, madam," replied Foote, " is because the Muse? 
are better company than the players." 

Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charle- 
mont, who was absent in Ireland, give us now 
and then an indication of the whereabout of the 
poet during the present year. " I have been but 
once to the club since you left England," write? 
he ; " we were entertained, as usual, with Gold- 
smith's absurdity." With Beauclerc everything 
was absurd that was not polished and pointed. 
In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charle- 
mont returns to England, to bring over the whole 
club, and let them loose upon him to drive him 
home by their peculiar habits of annoyance ; — 
Johnson shall spoil his books ; Goldsmith shall 
■pull his flowers ; and last, and most intolerable of 
all, Boswell shall — talk to him. It would ap- 
pear that the poet, who had a passion for flowers, 
was apt to pass much of his time in the garden 
when on a visit to a country-seat, much to the 
detriment of the flower-beds and the despair of 
the gardener. 

The summer wore heavily away with Gold- 



396 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

smith. He had not his usual solace of a country 
retreat ; his health was impaired and his spirits 
depressed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who perceived 
the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his 
company. In the course of their interchange of 
thought, Goldsmith suggested to him the story of 
Ugolino, as a subject for his pencil. The paint- 
ing founded on it remains a memento of their 
friendship. 

On the^ 4th of August we find them together 
at Vauxhall, at that time a place in high vogue, 
and which had once been to Goldsmith a scene 
of Oriental splendor and delight. We have, in 
fact, in the " Citizen of the World," a picture of 
it as it had struck him in former years and in 
his happier moods. ■ " Upon entering the gardens," 
says the Chinese philosopher, " I found every 
sense occupied with more than expected pleasure : 
the lights everywhere glimmering through the 
scarcely moving trees; the full-bodied concert 
bursting on the stillness of the night ; the natu- 
ral concert of the birds in the more retired part 
of the grove, vying with that which was formed 
by art ; the company gayly dressed, looking sat- 
isfaction, and the tables spread with various deli- 
cacies, — all conspired to fill my imagination with 
the visionary happiness of the Arabian law-giver, 
and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration." # 

Everything now, however, is seen with differ- 
ent eyes ; with him it is dissipation without pleas- 
ure ; and he finds* it impossible any longer, by 
mingling in the gay and giddy throng of appar- 
* Citizen of the World. Let. LXXI. 



CRADOCK IN TOWN. 397 

ently prosperous and happy beings, to escape from 
the carking care which is clinging to his heart. 

His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town 
towards autumn, when all the fashionable world 
was in the country, to give his wife the benefit 
of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings [ n N or . 
folk Street, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, 
and passed most of his mornings with him. " I 
found him," he says, " much altered and at times 
very low. He wished me to look over and revise 
some of his works ; but, with a select friend or 
two, I was more pressing that he should publish 
by subscription his two celebrated poems of the 
' Traveller' and the ' Deserted Village,' with notes." 
The idea of Cradock was, that the subscription 
would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Gold- 
smith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief with- 
out wounding his pride. " Goldsmith," said he, 
" readily gave up to me his private copies, and 
said, ' Pray do what you please with them.' But 
whilst he sat near me, he rather submitted to 
than encouraged my zealous proceedings. 

" I one morning called upon him, however, and 
found him infinitely better than I had expected ; 
and, in a kind of exulting style, he exclaimed, 
Here are some of the best of my prose writings ; 
I have been hard at ivork since midnight, and I 
desire you to examine them.' ' These,' said J, 
' are excellent indeed.' ' They are,' replied he, 
intended as an introduction to a body of arts and 
sciences.' " 

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together 
the fragments of his shipwreck; the notes and 



398 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

essays, and memoranda collected for his dictionary, 
and proposed to found on them a work in two 
volumes, to be entitled " A Survey of Experi- 
mental Philosophy." 

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, 
and the projected survey never was executed. 
The head might yet devise, but the heart was 
failing him ; his talent at hoping, which gave him 
buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost 
at an end. 

Cradock's farewell-scene with him is told in a 
simple but touching manner. 

" The day before I was to set out for Leices- 
tershire, I insisted upon his dining with us. He 
replied, ' I will, but on one condition, that you 
will not ask me to eat anything.' 'Nay,' said I, 
' this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, 
as we are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, 
that you would have named something you might 
have relished.' ' Well,' was the reply, ' if you will 
but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will certainly 
wait upon you.' 

" The Doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, 
newspapers and pamphlets, and with a pen and 
ink he amused himself as well as he could. I 
had ordered from the tavern some fish, a roasted 
joint of .lamb, and a tart ; and the Doctor either 
sat down or walked about just as he pleased. 
After dinner he took some wine with biscuits ; 
but I was obliged soon to leave him for a while, 
as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's 
journey. On my return, coffee was ready, and 
the Doctor appeared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cra- 



AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE. 399 

dock was always rather a favorite with him), and 
in the evening he endeavored to talk and remark 
as usual, but all was force. He stayed till mid- 
night, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, 
and we most cordially shook hands at the Temple- 
gate." Cradock little thought that this was to 
be their final parting. He looked back to it with 
mournful recollections in after -years, and la- 
mented that he had not remained longer in town 
at every inconvenience, to solace the poor broken- 
spirited poet. 

The latter continued in town all the autumn. 
At the opening of the Opera-House, on the 20th 
of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he 
held in great esteem, delivered a poetical exor- 
dium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter 
to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, 
and predicted that it would soon be in all the pa- 
pers. It does not appear, however, to have been 
ever published. In his fitful state of mind Gold- 
smith may have taken no care about it, and thus 
it has been lost to the world, although it was re- 
ceived with great applause by a crowded and 
brilliant audience. 

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom 
that was gathering over the poet. Towards the 
end of the year he receives another Christmas 
invitation to Barton. A country Christmas ! — 
with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and 
the joyous revelry of the oaken hall, — what a 
contrast to the loneliness of a bachelor's cham- 
bers in the Temple ! It is not to be resisted. 
But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and 
26 



400 OLIVER G OLDS MIT b. 

means ? His purse is empty ; his booksellers are 
already in advance to him. As a last resource, 
he applies to Garrick. Their mutual intimacy 
at Barton may have suggested him as an alterna- 
tive. The old loan of forty pounds has never 
been paid ; and Newbery's note, pledged as a se- 
curity, has never been taken up. An additional 
loan of sixty pounds is now asked for, thus in- 
creasing the loan to one hundred ; to insure the 
payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, 
the transfer of the comedy of the " Good-natured 
Man" to Drury Lane, with such alterations as 
Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply, evades 
the offer of the altered comedy, alludes signifi- 
cantly to a new one which Goldsmith had talked 
of writing for him, and offers to furnish the money 
required on his own acceptance. 

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brim- 
ful of gratitude and overflowing with fond anti- 
cipations of Barton and the smiles of its fair resi- 
dents. " My dear friend," writes he, " I thank 
you. I wish I could do something to serve you. 
I shall have a comedy for you in a season, or 
two at farthest, that I believe will be worth your 
acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. 

You shall have the refusal I will draw 

upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, 
and your acceptance will be ready money, part 
of which I want to go down to Barton with. 
May God preserve my honest little man, for ho 
has my heart. Ever, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 



CHRISTMAS AT BARTON. 



401 



And having thus scrambled together a little 
pocket-money, by hard contrivance, poor Gold- 
smith turns his back upon care and trouble, and 
Temple quarters, to forget for a time Lis desolate 
bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas 
fireside at Barton. 





CHAPTER XLIV. 

A Return to Drudgery; Forced Gayety ; Retreat to the -Coun 
try ; The Poem of Retaliation. — Portrait of Garrick ; Of 
Goldsmith ; Of Reynolds. — Illness of the Poet ; His Death ; 
Grief of his Friends. — A Last Word respecting the Jes- 
samy Bride. 

HE Barton festivities are over ; Christ- 
mas, with all its home-felt revelry of the 
^-^^ heart, has passed like a dream ; the Jes- 
samy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the 
poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in 
his now dreary bachelor abode in the Temple, 
toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multiplicity of 
tasks. His " Animated Nature," so long delayed, 
so often interrupted, is at length announced for 
publication, though it has yet to receive a few fin- 
ishing touches. He is preparing a third " History 
of England," to be compressed and condensed in 
one volume, for the use of schools. He is revis- 
ing his " Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which 
he receives the pittance of five guineas, much 
needed in his present scantiness of purse ; he is 
arranging his " Survey of Experimental Philoso- 
phy," and he is translating the " Comic Romance " 
of Scarron. Such is a part of the various labors 
of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head 
is made weary and his heart faint. " If there is 
a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter Scott, " which 



FORCED GAYETT. 403 

lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like 
the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by 
literary composition, when the heart is not in 
unison with the work upon which the head is 
employed. Add to the unhappy author's task 
sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable 
circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman be- 
comes light in comparison." Goldsmith again 
makes an effort to rally his spirits by going into 
gay society. " Our Club," writes Beauclerc to 
Charlemont, on the 12th of February, •' has dwin- 
dled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith 
have got into such a round of pleasures that they 
have no time." This shows how little Beauclepc 
was the companion of the poet's mind, or could 
judge of him below the surface. Reynolds, the 
kind participator in joyless dissipation, could have 
told a different story of his companion's heart-sick 
gayety. 

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertain- 
ments in his chambers in the Temple ; the last 
of which was a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and 
others of his intimates, who partook with sorrow 
and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The 
first course vexed them by its needless profusion. 
When a second, equally extravagant, was served 
up. Johnson and Reynolds declined to partake of 
it ; the rest of the company, understanding their 
motives, followed their example, and the dishes 
went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt 
sensibly this silent and well-intended rebuke. 

The gayeties of society, however, cannot med- 
icine for any length of time a mind diseased 



404 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Wearied by the distractions and harassed by the 
expenses of a town-life, which he had not the dis- 
cretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, 
too tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet, 
and cheap and healthful pleasures of the country, 
and of passing only two .months of the year in 
London. He accordingly made arrangements to 
sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the 
month of March retired to his country quarters at 
Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. At this 
dispirited juncture, when inspiration seemed to be 
at an end, and the poetic tire extinguished, a 
spark fell on his combustible imagination and set 
it in a blaze. 

He belonged to a temporary association of men 
of talent, some of them members of the Literary 
Club, who dined together occasionally at the St. 
James's CofFee-House. At these dinners, as usual, 
he was one of the last to arrive. On one occasion, 
when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim 
seized the company to write epitaphs on him, as 
" The late Dr. Goldsmith," and several were 
thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his pecu- 
liarities. The only one extant was written by 
Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, 
by its pungency : — 

" Here lies poet (goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll." 

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially 
as coming from such a quarter. He was not very 
ready at repartee ; but he took his time, and in 
the interval of his various tasks concocted a series 



DAVID GARRICK. 405 

of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of " Re- 
taliation," in which the characters of his distin- 
guished intimates were admirably hit off, with a 
mixture of generous praise and good-humored rail- 
lery. In fact the poem, for its graphic truth, its 
nice discrimination, its terse good sense, and its 
shrewd knowledge of the world, must have elec- 
trified the club almost as much as the first appear- 
ance of " The Traveller," and let them still deeper 
into the character and talents of the man they 
had been accustomed to consider as their butt. 
" Retaliation," in a word, closed his accounts with 
the club, and balanced all his previous deficiencies. 
The portrait of David Garrick is one of the 
most elaborate in the poem. When the poet 
came to touch it off, he had som<j lurking piques 
to gratify, which the recent attack had revived. 
He may have forgotten David's cavalier treat- 
ment of him, in the early days of his comparative 
obscurity ; he may have forgiven his refusal of 
his plays ; but Garrick had been capricious in 
his conduct in the times of their recent intercourse : 
sometimes treating him with gross familiarity, at 
other times affecting dignity and reserve, and as- 
suming airs of superiority ; frequently he had 
been facetious and witty in company, at his ex- 
pense, and lastly he had been guilty of the couplet 
just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched oflf 
the lights and shadows of his character with a free 
hand, and at the same time gave a side-hit at his 
old rival, Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Ken- 
rick, in making them sycophantic satellites of the 
actor. Goldsmith, however, was void of gall even 



406 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

in his revenge, and his very satire was more nu- 
merous than caustic : — 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; 

As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine; 

As a wit, if not first, in the very first line: 

Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 

The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 

Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, 

And beplaster'd with rouge his oavii natural red. 

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 

'T was only that when he was off he was acting. 

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 

He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day: 

Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 

If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 

For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back 

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame; 

Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, 

Who pepper' d the highest was surest to please. 

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gavei 

How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised 

While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised! 

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 

To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 

Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 

Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 

Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, 

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above." 

This portion of " Retaliation " soon brought a 
retort from Garrick, which we insert, as giving 
something of a likeness of Goldsmith, though iis 
Sroatl caricature : — 



CARD-PLA YING. 407 

' Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar wa3 mellow, 

Gk) fetch me some clay— I will make an odd fellow: 

Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross, 

Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross ; 

Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions, 

A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions; 

Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, 

Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion and raking. 

With the love of a wench let his writings be chaste ; 

Tip his tongue with strange matter, his lips with fine taste .' 

That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail, 

Set fire to the head and set fire t' the tail ; 

For the joy of each sex on the world I '11 bestow it, 

This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. 

Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame, 

And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name ; 

When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, 

You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." 

The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced 
in the foregoing lines, must be considered a sport- 
ive one, founded, perhaps, on an incident or two 
within Garrick's knowledge, but not borne out by 
the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to 
have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but per- 
fectly free from libertinism. Neither was he an 
habitual gamester. The strictest scrutiny has de- 
tected no settled vice of the kind. He was fond 
of a game of cards, but an unskilful and careless 
player. Cards in those days were universally in- 
troduced into society. High play was, in fact, a 
fashionable amusement, as at one time was deep 
drinking; and a man might occasionally lose 
large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, 
without incurring the character of a gamester or 
a drunkard. Poor Goldsmith, on his advent into 
aigh society, assumed fine notions with fine clothes 



408 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

he was thrown occasionally among high players, 
men of fortune who could sport their cool hun- 
dred as carelessly as his early comrades at Bal- 
lymahon could their half-crowns. Being at all 
times magnificent in money-matters, he may have 
played with them in their own way, without con- 
sidering that what was sport to them to him was 
ruin. Indeed, part of his financial embarrass- 
ments may have arisen from losses of the kind, 
incurred inadvertently, not in the indulgence of 
a habit. " I do not believe Goldsmith to have 
deserved the name of gamester," said one of his 
contemporaries ; " he liked cards very well, as 
other people do, and lost and won occasionally, 
but as far as I saw or heard, and I had many op- 
portunities of hearing, never any considerable sum. 
If he gamed with any one, it was probably with 
Beauclerc, but I do not know that such was the 
case." 

" Retaliation," as we have already observed, 
was thrown off in parts, at intervals, and was 
never completed. Some characters, originally in- 
tended to be introduced, remained unattempted ; 
others were but partially sketched — such as the 
one of Reynolds, the friend of his heart, and which 
he commenced with a felicity which makes us re- 
gret that it should remain unfinished. 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 



HIS LAST ILLNESS. 409 

When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing: 
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff. 
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff. 
By flattery unspoiled " 

The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the 
easel ; the hand of the artist had failed ! An 
access of a local complaint, under which he had 
suffered for some time past, added to a general 
prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to 
town before he had well settled himself in the 
country. The local complaint subsided, but was 
followed by a low nervous fever. He was not 
aware of his critical situation, and intended to be 
at the club on the 25th of March, on which occa- 
sion Charles Fox, Sir Charles Bunbury (one of 
the Horneck connection), and two other new 
members were to be present. In the afternoon, 
however, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and 
his symptoms soon acquired sufficient force to keep 
him there. His malady fluctuated for several 
days, and hopes were entertained of his recovery, 
but they proved fallacious. He had skilful medi- 
cal aid and faithful nursing, but he would not fol- 
low the advice of his physicians, and persisted in 
the use of James's powders, which he had once 
found beneficial, but which were now injurious 
to him. His appetite was gone, his strength 
failed him, but his mind remained clear, and was 
perhaps too active for his frame. Anxieties and 
disappointments which had previously sapped his 
constitution, doubtless aggravated his present com- 
plaint and rendered him sleepless. In reply to 
m inquiry of his physician, he acknowledged that 



£10 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

his mind was ill at ease. This was his last reply : 
he was too weak to talk, and in general took no 
no;' ice of what was said to him. He sank at last 
into a deep sleep, and it was hoped a favorable 
crisis had arrived. He awoke, however, in strong 
convulsions, which continued without intermission 
until he expired, on the fourth of April, at five 
o'clock in the morning ; being in the forty-sixth 
year of his age. 

His death was a shock to the literary world, 
and a deep affliction to a wide circle of intimates 
and friends; for, with all his foibles and peculi- 
arities, he was fully as much beloved as he was 
admired. Burke, on hearing the news, burst into 
tears. Sir Joshua Reynolds threw by his pencil 
for the day, and grieved more than he had done 
in times of great family distress. " I was abroad 
at the time of his death," writes Dr. M'Donnell, 
the youth whom when in distress he had em- 
ployed as an amanuensis, "and I wept bitterly 
when the intelligence first reached me. A blank 
came over my heart as if I had lost one of my 
nearest relatives, and w^ts followed for some days 
by a feeling of despondency." Johnson felt the 
blow deeply and gloomily. In writing some time 
afterwards to Boswell, he observed, " Of poor 
Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more than 
the papers have made public. He died of a fever 
made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of 
mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his 
resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of 
opinion that he owed no less than two thousand 
pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before ? " 



THE J ESS AMY BRIDE. 411 

Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due 
to his tailor, Mr. William Filby, from whom he- 
had received a new suit but a few d ivs before 
his death. " My father," said the your ger Filby, 
" though a loser to that amount, attributed no 
blame to Goldsmith ; he had been a good cus- 
tomer, and, had he lived, would have paid every 
farthing." Others of his tradespeople evinced 
the same confidence in his integrity, notwithstand- 
ing his heedlessness. Two sister milliners in 
Temple Lane, who had been accustomed to deal 
with him, were concerned when told, some 
time before his death, of his pecuniary embar- 
rassments. " Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, 
" sooner persuade him to let us work for him 
gratis than apply to any other ; we are sure he 
will pay us when he can." 

On the stairs of his apartment there was the 
lamentation of the old and infirm, and the sob- 
bing of women ; poor objects of his charity, to 
whom he had never turned a deaf ear, even when 
struggling himself with poverty. 

But there was one mourner whose enthusiasm 
for his memory, could it have been foreseen, might 
have soothed the bitterness of death. After the 
coffin had been screwed down, a lock of his hair 
was requested for a lady, a particular friend, who 
wished to preserve it as a remembrance. It was 
the beautiful Mary Horneck — the Jessamy Bride. 
The coffin was opened again, and a lock of hair 
cut off; which she treasured to her dying day. 
Poor Goldsmith ! could he have foreseen that such 
i memorial of him was to be thus cherished ! 



412 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

One word more concerning this lady, to whom 
we have so often ventured to advert. She sur- 
vived almost to the present day. Hazlitt met 
her at Northcote's painting-room, about twenty 
years since, as Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a Gen- 
eral Gwyn of the army. She was at that time* 
upwards of seventy years of age. Still, he 
said, she was beautiful, beautiful even in years. 
After she was gone, Hazlitt remarked how hand- 
some she still was. " I do not know," said North- 
cote, " why she is so kind as to come to see me, 
except that I am the last link in the chain that 
connects her with all those she most esteemed 
when young — Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith — 
and remind her of the most delightful period 
of her life." " Not only so," observed Hazlitt, 
" but you remember what she was at twenty ; 
and you thus bring back to her the triumphs of 
her youth — that pride of beauty, which must be 
the more fondly cherished as it has no external 
vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom of its once 
lovely possessor. In her, however, the Graces 
had triumphed over time ; she was one of Ninon 
de l'Enclos's people, of the last of the immortals. 
I could almost fancy the shade of Goldsmith in 
the room, looking round with complacency." 

The Jessamy Bride survived her sister up- 
wards of forty years, and died in 1840, within a 
few days of completing her eighty-eighth year. 
" She had gone through all the stages of life," 
says Northcote, " and had lent a grace to each." 
However gayly she may have sported with the 
half-concealed admiration of the poor awkward 



THE J ESS AMY BRIDE. 413 

t 

poet in the heyday of her youth and beauty, and 
however much it may have been made a subject 
of teasing by her youthful companions, she evi- 
dently prided herself in after-years upon having 
been an object of his affectionate regard ; it cer- 
tainly rendered her interesting throughout life iu 
the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a poetical 
wreath above her grave. 




CHAPTER XLV. 




The Funeral. — The Monument. — The Epitaph. — Conclud- 
ing Remarks. 

|N the warm feeling of the moment, while 
the remains of the poet were scarce cold, 
it was determined by his friends to honor 
them by a public funeral and a tomb in Westmin- 
ster Abbey. His very pall-bearers were desig- 
nated : Lord Shelburne, Lord Lowth, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds ; the Hon. Mr. Beauclerc, Mr. Burke, 
and David Garrick. This feeling cooled down, 
however, when it was discovered that he died in 
debt, and had not left wherewithal to pay for such 
expensive obsequies. Five days after his death, 
therefore, at five o'clock of Saturday evening, the 
9th of April, he was privately interred in the 
burying-ground of the Temple Church ; a few 
persons attending as mourners, among whom we 
do not find specified any of his peculiar and dis- 
tinguished friends. The chief mourner was Sir 
Joshua Reynolds's nephew, Palmer, afterwards 
Dean of Cashel. One person, however, from 
whom it was but little to be expected, attended 
the funeral and evinced real sorrow on the occa- 
sion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the dramatic 
rival of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anony- 
mous assailant in the newspapers. If he had really 



THE MALIGNANCY OF KENRICK. 415 

been guilty of this basest of literary offences, hie 
was punished by the stings of remorse, for we are 
told that he shed bitter tears over the grave of the 
man he had injured. His tardy atonement only 
provoked the lash of some unknown satirist, as the 
following lines will show : — 

" Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame, 
Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame, 
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit 
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit; 
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate, 
And acts as a mourner to blubber in state." 

One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the 
reptile Kenrick, who, after having repeatedly slan- 
dered Goldsmith, while living, had the audacity 
to insult his memory when dead. The following 
distich is sufficient to show his malignancy, and to 
hold him up to execration : — 

" By his own art, who justly died, 
A blund'ring, artless suicide: 
Share, earthworms, share, since now he 's dead, 
His megrim, maggot-bitten head." 

This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of 
public indignation, that awed for a time even the 
imfamous Kenrick into silence. On the other 
hand, the press teemed with tributes in verse and 
prose to the memory of the deceased ; all evincing 
the mingled feeling of admiration for the author 
and affection for the man. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club set 
on foot a subscription, and raised a fund to erect 

a monument to his memory, in Westminster AJb- 

27 



416 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

bey. It was executed by Nollekens, and consisted 
simply of a bust of the poet in profile, in high re- 
lief, in a medallion, and was placed in the area 
of a pointed arch, over the south door in Poet's 
Corner, between the monuments of Gay and the 
Duke of Argyle. Johnson furnished a Latin epi- 
taph, which was read at the table of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, where several members of the club and 
other friends of the deceased were present. Though 
considered by them a masterly composition, they 
thought the literary character of the poet not de- 
fined with sufficient exactness, and they preferred 
that the epitaph should be in English rather than 
Latin, as " the memory of so eminent an English 
writer ought to be perpetuated in the language to 
which his works were likely to be so lasting an 
ornament." 

These objections were reduced to writing, to be 
respectfully submitted to Johnson, but such was 
the awe entertained of his frown, that every one 
shrank from putting his name first to the in- 
strument ; whereupon their names were written 
about it in a circle, making what mutinous sailors 
call a Round Robin. Johnson received it half 
graciously, half grimly. " He was willing," he 
said, " to modify the sense of the epitaph in any 
manner the gentlemen pleased ; but he never would 
consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey 
with an English inscription." Seeing the names 
of Dr. Warton and Edmund Burke among the 
signers, " he wondered," he said, " that Joe War- 
ton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool ; 
and should have thought that Mund Burke would 



THE EPITAPH. 417 

have had more sense." The following is the epi- 
taph as it stands inscribed on a white marble tab- 
let beneath the bust : — 

" OLIYARII GOLDSMITH,* 

Poetae, Physici, Historici, 
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus 

Non tetigit, 

Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit: 

Sive risus essent movendi, 

Sive lacrymse, 

Affectuum potens at lenis dominator: 

Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis, 

Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus : 

Hoc monumento memoriam coluit 

Sodalium amor, 

Amicorum fides, 

Lectorum veneratio. 

Natus in Hibernia Fornise Longfordiensis, 

In loco cui nomen Pallas, 

Nov. xxix. mdccxxxi. ; 

Eblanse Uteris institutus; 

Obiit Londini, 
April iv. mdcclxxiv." f 

We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes 
of the life of Goldsmith with any critical disserta- 

* The following translation is from Croker's edition of Bos- 
well's " Johnson " : — 

"OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH — 

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, 

Who left scarcely any style of writing 

Untouched, 

And touched nothing that he did not adorn ; 

Of all the passions, 

r Not correct. The true date of birth was 10th Nov. 1728, 
as given on page 14. 



418 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

tion on his writings ; their merits have long since 
been fully discussed, and their station in the scale 
of literary merit permanently established. They 
have outlasted generations of works of higher 
power and wider scope, and will continue to out- 
last succeeding generations, for they have that 
magic charm of style by which works are em- 
balmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we attempt 
a regular analysis of the character of the poet, but 
will indulge in a few desultory remarks in addi- 
tion to those scattered throughout the precediDg 
chapters. 

Never was the trite, because sage apophthegm, 
that " The child is father to the man," more fully 
verified than in the case of Goldsmith. He is shy, 
awkward, and blundering in childhood, yet full of 
sensibility ; he is a butt for the jeers and jokes of 
his companions, but apt to surprise and confound 
them by sudden and witty repartees ; he is dull 
and stupid at his tasks, yet an eager and intelli- 
gent devourer of the travelling tales and campaign- 

Whether smiles were to be moved 

Or tears, 

A powerful yet gentle master ; 

In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, 

In style, elevated, clear, elegant — 

The love of companions, 

The fidelity of friends, 

And the veneration of readers, 

Have by this monument honored the memory. 

lie was born in Ireland, 

At a place called Pallas, 

[Til the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, 

On the 29th Nov., 1731, 

Educated at [the University of] ]>ublin, 

And died in London, 

4th April, 1774. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 419 

ing stories of his half military pedagogue ; he 
may be a dunce, but he is already a rhymer ; and 
his early scintillations of poetry awaken the ex* 
pectations of his friends. He seems from infancy 
to have been compounded of two natures, one 
bright, the other blundering ; or to have had fairy 
gifts laid in his cradle by the " good people " who 
haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on 
the banks of the Inny. 

He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, 
if we may so term it, throughout his career His 
fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or 
college : they unfit him for close study and practical 
science, and render him heedless of everything 
that does not address itself to his poetical imagina- 
tion and genial and festive feelings ; they dispose 
him to break away from restraint, to stroll about 
hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel 
with jovial companions, or to rove the country 
like a gypsy in quest of odd adventures. 

As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes 
no heed of the present nor care for the future, 
lays no regular and solid foundation of knowledge, 
follows out no plan, adopts and discards those 
recommended by his friends, at one time prepares 
for the ministry, next turns to the law, and then 
fixes upon medicine. He repairs to Edinburgh, 
the great emporium of medical science, but the 
fairy gifts accompany him ; he idles and frolics 
away his time there, imbibing only such knowl- 
edge as is agreeable to him ; makes an excursion 
to the poetical regions of the Highlands ; and 
having walked the hospitals for the customary 



420 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in 
quest of novelty rather than knowledge. His 
whole tour is a poetical one. He fancies he is 
playing the philosopher while he is really playing 
the poet ; and though professedly he attends lec- 
tures and visits foreign universities, so deficient is 
he on his return, in the studies for which he set 
out, that he fails in an examination as a surgeon's 
mate ; and while figuring as a doctor of medicine, 
is outvied on a point of practice by his apothecary. 
Baffled in every regular pursuit, after trying in 
vain some of the humbler callings of commonplace 
life, he is driven almost by chance to the exercise 
of his pen, and here the fairy gifts come to his 
assistance. For a long time, however, he seems 
unaware of the magic properties of that pen : he 
uses it only as a makeshift until he can find a 
legitimate means of support. He is not a learned 
man, and can write but meagrely and at second- 
hand on learned subjects ; but he has a quick con- 
vertible talent that seizes lightly on the points of 
knowledge necessary to the illustration of a theme : 
his writings for a time are desultory, the fruits of 
what he has seen and felt, or what he has re- 
cently and hastily read ; but his gifted pen trans- 
mutes everything into gold, and his own genial 
nature reflects its sunshine through his pages. 

Still unaware of his powers he throws off his 
writings anonymously, to go with the writings of 
less favored men ; and it is a long time, and after 
a bitter struggle with poverty and humiliation, 
before he acquires confidence in his literary tal- 
ent as a means of support, and begins to dream of 
reputation. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 421 

From this time his pen is a wand of power in 
his hand, and he has only to use it discreetly, to 
make it competent to all his wants. But discre- 
tion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature ; and it 
seems the property of these fairy gifts to be ac- 
companied by moods and temperaments to render 
their effect precarious. The heedlessness of his 
early days ; his disposition for social enjoyment 
his habit of throwing the present on the neck of 
the future, still continue. His expenses forerun 
his means ; he incurs debts on the faith of what 
his magic pen is to produce, and then, under the 
pressure of his debts, sacrifices its productions for 
prices far below their value. It is a redeeming 
circumstance in his prodigality that it is lavished 
oftener upon others than upon himself: he gives 
without thought or stint, and is the continual 
dupe of his benevolence and his trustfulness in 
human nature. We may say of him as he says 
of one of his heroes, " He could not stifle the 
natural impulse which he had to do good, but fre- 
quently borrowed money to relieve the distressed ; 
and when he knew not conveniently where to 
borrow, he has been observed to shed tears as he 
passed through the wretched suppliants who at- 
tended his gate." ..... 

" His simplicity in trusting persons whom he 
had no previous reasons to place confidence in, 
seems to be one of those lights of his character 
which, while they impeach his understanding, do 
Honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid 
are ever suspicious ; but a heart impressed with 



422 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

honorable seLtiments, expects from others sympa- 
thetic sincerity." * 

His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which 
had rendered his life a struggle with poverty even 
in the days of his obscurity, rendered the struggle 
still more intense when his fairy gifts had ele- 
vated him into the society of the wealthy and 
luxurious, and imposed on his simple and gener- 
ous spirit fancied obligations to a more ample and 
bounteous display. 

" How comes it," says* a recent and ingenious 
critic, " that in all the miry paths of life which 
he had trod, no speck ever sullied the robe of 
his modest and graceful Muse. How amidst all 
that love of inferior company, which never to the 
last forsook him, did he keep his genius so free 
from every touch of vulgarity ? " 

We answer that it was owing to the innate 
purity and goodness of his nature ; there was 
nothing in it that assimilated to vice and vulgar- 
ity. Though his circumstances often compelled 
him to associate with the poor, they never could 
betray him into companionship with the depraved. 
His relish for humor and for the study of char- 
acter, as we have before observed, brought him 
often into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; 
but he discriminated between their vulgarity and 
their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from 
the whole those familiar pictures of life which 
form the staple of his most popular writings. 

Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may 
be ascribed to the lessons of his infancy under 
* Goldsmith's Life of Nash. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 423 

the paternal roof; to the gentle, benevolent, ele- 
•vated, unworldly maxims of his father, who " pass- 
ing rich with forty pounds a year," infused a 
spirit into his child which riches could not deprave 
nor poverty degrade. Much of his boyhood, too, 
had been passed in the household of his uncle, 
the amiable and generous Contarine ; where he 
talked of literature with the good pastor, and 
practised music with his daughter, and delighted 
them both by his juvenile attempts at poetry. 
These early associations breathed a grace and re- 
finement into his mind and tuned it up, after 
the rough sports on the green, or the frolics at 
the tavern. These led him to turn from the roar- 
ing glees of the club, to listen to the harp of his 
cousin Jane ; and from the rustic triumph of 
" throwing sledge," to a stroll with his flute along 
the pastoral banks of the Inny. 

The gentle spirit of his father walked with 
him through life, a pure and virtuous monitor ; 
and in all the vicissitudes of his career we find 
him ever more chastened in mind by the sweet 
and holy recollections of the home of his infancy. 

It has been questioned whether he really had 
any religious feeling. Those who raise the 
question have never considered well his writings ; 
his " Vicar of Wakefield," and his pictures of the 
Village Pastor, present religion under its most 
endearing forms, and with a feeling that could 
only flow from the deep convictions of the heart. 
When his fair travelling companions at Paris 
irged him to read the Church Service on a Sun- 



424 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

day, he replied that " he was not worthy to do it.** 
He had seen in early life the sacred offices per- 
formed by his father and his brother with a so- 
lemnity which had sanctified them in his memory ; 
how could he presume to undertake such func- 
tions ? His religion has been called in question 
by Johnson and by Bos well : he certainly had not 
the gloomy hypochondriacal piety of the one, nor 
the babbling mouth-piety of the other; but the 
spirit of Christian charity, breathed forth in his 
writings and illustrated in his conduct, give us 
reason to believe he had the indwelling religion 
of the soul. 

We have made sufficient comments in the pre- 
ceding chapters on his conduct in elevated circles 
of literature and fashion. The fairy gifts which 
took him there were not accompanied by the 
gifts and graces necessary to sustain him in that 
artificial sphere. He can neither play the learned 
sage with Johnson, nor the fine gentleman with 
Beauclerc; though he has a mind replete with 
wisdom and natural shrewdness, and a spirit free 
v> rom vulgarity. The blunders of a fertile but 
hurried intellect, and the awkward display of the 
student assuming the man of fashion, fix on him 
a character for absurdity and vanity which, like 
the charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, how- 
ever weak the grounds of the charge and strong 
the facts in opposition to it. 

In truth, he is never truly in his place in these 
learned and fashionable circles, which talk and 
live for display. It is not the kind of society he 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 425 

craves. His heart yearns f<*r domestic life ; it 
craves familiar, confiding intercourse, family fire- 
sides, the guileless and happy company of chil- 
dren ; these bring out the heartiest and sweetest 
sympathies of his nature. 

" Had it been his fate," says the critic we have 
already quoted, "to meet a woman who could 
have loved him, despite his faults, and respected 
him despite his foibles, we cannot but think that 
his life and his genius would have been much 
more harmonious ; his desultory affections would 
have been concentred, his craving self-love ap- 
peased, his pursuits more settled, his character 
more solid. A nature like Goldsmith's, so affec- 
tionate, so confiding — so susceptible to simple, 
innocent enjoyments — so dependent on others 
for the sunshine of existence, does not flower if 
deprived of the atmosphere of home." 

The cravings of his heart in this respect are 
evident, we think, throughout his career ; and if 
we have dwelt with more significancy than others 
upon his intercourse with the beautiful Horneck 
family, it is because we fancied we could detect, 
amid his playful attentions to one of its members, 
a lurking sentiment of tenderness, kept down by 
conscious poverty and a humiliating idea of per- 
sonal defects. A hopeless feeling of this kind — 
the last a man would communicate to his friends 

might account for much of that fitfulness of 

conduct, and that gathering melancholy, remarked, 
but not comprehended by his associates, during 
the last year or two of his life ; and may have 



426 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

been one of the troubles of the mind which ag- 
gravated his last illness, and only terminated with 
his death. 

We shall conclude these desultory remarks 
with a few which have been used by us on a for- 
mer occasion. From the general tone of Gold- 
smith's biography, it is evident that his faults, at 
the worst, were but negative, while his merits 
were great and decided. He was no one's enemy 
but his own ; his errors, in the main, inflicted evil 
on none but himself, and were so blended with 
humorous and even affecting circumstances, as 
to disarm anger and conciliate kindness. Where 
eminent talent is united to spotless virtue, we are 
awed and dazzled into admiration, but our admi- 
ration is apt to be cold and reverential ; while 
there is, something in the harmless infirmities of 
a good and great, but erring individual, that 
pleads touchingly to our nature ; and we turn 
more kindly towards the object of our idolatry, 
when we find that, like ourselves, he is mortal 
and is frail. The epithet so often heard, and in 
such kindly tones, of " poor Goldsmith," speaks 
volumes. Few, who consider the real compound 
of admirable and whimsical qualities which form 
his character, would wish to prune away its ec- 
centricities, trim its grotesque luxuriance, and 
clip it down to the decent formalities of rigid 
virtue. " Let not his frailties be remembered," 
said Johnson ; " he was a very great man." But, 
fur our part, we rather say, " Let them be re- 
membered," since their tendency is to endear ; 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 427 

and we question whether he himself would not 
feel gratified in hearing his reader, after dwelling 
with admiration on the proofs of his greatness, 
close the volume with the kind-hearted phrase, so 
fondly and familiarly ejaculated, of " Poor 
Goldsmith." 



THE END. 




